Being a columnist, I will not have interesting and fun-filled
tidbits about journalism every week. Therefore, the most interesting
ones will be every other week, after I write my column and then need to
vent about how certain words have a way of hiding from you every time
you try to lay your hands on them. This is not one of those weeks, so I
will spare you my frustrated garble.
For this week’s blog, I would like to think of myself as a student
with the ability to publish her frustrations on a great college
newpaper’s Web site. Being a student, there are really only two things
I can talk about: bars and class. These two things consume my life
these days, and the bars are starting to get a little more priority
than
classes (with a five-hour break between Ethnic Studies 102 and Women
and Nature, deciding whether to go to the library or into Rennie’s for
a
few drinks is a no-brainer).
But let me just get something out that I have been holding in.
Being at a relatively large university, you get a few professors here
who are mainly the research type — you know, the ones who LIVE for
choosing the library over Rennie’s. Yet, they are forced to teach
classes to keep their research grants alive, or whatever. For some
reason, the University has allowed some of the most
incompetent, albeit brilliant, professors to teach classes. I will not
mention the name of the professor with whom I have such a problem, but
let it be known that simply because you can get a Ph.D. or write a good
book does not mean that you have the ability to go into a classroom of
40 people and try to teach it to them. In fact, it probably means that
you can’t. More and more, I have found that professors are unable to
communicate to students at even the most basic of levels — their heads
are too filled with knowledge and reasoning that it takes them (and
here
I am not exaggerating) about half a minute to say one word. They think
too much.
They then proceed, at a word every half minute, to stand in the
front of the classroom for a good hour and a half and spout out
memories
of the good ol’ ’60s and how much fun it was raising hell. Listening
to this would be fun, if you’re not paying for it. At a couple hundred
bucks a credit or so, these professors who do not discuss the material
THEY assigned and simply feel it is worthwhile to stand in the front of
the classroom and chat are literally robbing me!
I have no call to action, this being a blog page and not a column,
but if there are any professors who are reading this blog, hear this:
Please, for the love of whatever you study, don’t waste our time,
Rennie’s is calling.