The sad truth is, we are not going to love every professor we get in college. Everyone is going to have some amazing professors, and some professors that make dropping out seem like a better option then going to class. These are just some of the worst things professors do to make their students instantly not like them.
1. Reading off powerpoints is literally most miserable thing a professor can do. There are seriously infinite problems I have with this style of lecturing. It is USELESS for you to read the powerpoint to the class, we all can see it and read it ourselves. Basically this kind of professor is doing absolutely nothing to teach the students and it is so frustrating and boing to sit through a lecture like this.
2.Making the class watch videos. Getting to watch a movie every now and again instead of having a lecture or something to do in class is nice. But teachers who play videos every class and expect the students to stay awake and take notes are kidding themselves. If you try to make me sit down and watch a video on art history at noon on a friday I WILL fall asleep and the whole class will be with me. Sorry not sorry.
3. Trying to teach up to the very last minute of class. Can you not see that the class is packing up their stuff to leave? Don’t pretend like there is time to go over a few more things. Even if it would really only take the last two minutes, no one is paying attention and no one is going to write it down. Just let us leave a little early; it makes the students like the professor so much more.
4. Repeating a word or phrase a lot. “Umm so in 1942 um Christopher Columbus ummmm.” SHUT UP. A professor who constantly is repeating the same word is so annoying. There is no way anyone is focusing on what they are saying besides that stupid word or phrase. I guarantee the whole class is keeping a tally of how many times the professor is saying it. Some of my personal favorites have been “on there” (I don’t know what its even supposed to mean), “appreciate”, and the ever popular “like”.
5. Stuttering through their lectures is a related problem. I understand you can’t help it sometime but it is so hard to focus when the professor is struggling to get words out. If they had some public speaking skills or knew their own information better that would at least help the situation.
6. Sending in another professor to cover them when they aren’t going to be in class. Really? So the professor pretty much gets to skip, but we have to go to class still and be taught by someone who has no idea what’s happening? Doesn’t add up. If you aren’t going to be there the class deserves that day off too. Don’t send in your friend who is a professor in a different class. Just don’t.
7. Taking forever to grade things and get the grades back. Nothing sucks more than not knowing if you are even passing a class until its too late. I have no idea what is so hard about getting grades back to the students. I thought professors want us to do well? It’s a little hard to do that when we don’t even know what grade we got on the last paper when we are passing in the next one.
8. Waiting till like the last second to post something important online. Don’t send an email about homework that is due Monday morning on Sunday at ten at night. No one is going to do it. And when the class complains about not knowing the due date DO NOT say “oh well it was in the syllabus”. No one has that memorized and no one checks the syllabus on a daily basis. You’re living in a fantasyland if you think that is realistic.
9. Acting like their students have nothing else going on in their lives expect for this class. Hello! We have a full schedule just like you. Four to six classes all with their own work, a job, and a social life. Don’t act like all students just go back to the dorms and drink for the rest of the day after class. As much as some of us would love to do that, it isn’t a reality. So don’t assign a bunch of stuff and pretend like we have nothing better to do than get it done in a few hours or even a few days.
10. Not putting any effort into actually teaching something. Their job is to be a professor; to teach. I will never understand how some professors are completely missing this part. Spending class giving us irrelevant information or telling us useless personal stories is never going to help us pass your test, which I can almost promise will be ridiculously hard because it seems that its always the professors that don’t even teach who give the hardest exams.
