Comment Students need Protection and I do not mean condoms (Score 1) 1218
Originally, I had a similar experience as the writer, but I tough it up and now I am one course away from receiving my masters. I think he brought it to himself though for being too cocky. If you put yourself on a pedestal you will fall from that much higher. Nevertheless, I do concur with a lot with what he wrote.
Another problem that the reader perhaps didn't get the chance to experience is that of making enemies with a well established professor. I am one of those unfortunate students. I once took a course with this professor who was known to be hard. Anyways, this professor's research brings a lot of money to the school consequently; he has a lot of power in the department. To make the story short he lowered my final grade from a B- to a C just because I complained about my grade when I noticed that B- was the grade he gave students who did not complete the requirements. Since, I completed all the requirements except for a ridiculous one I thought I was in my right to complain. One of the requirements was that the java program was to be presented in the UNIX lab. I presented it on my laptop running windows. I was sure he will understand given that I had very limited time due to my other responsibilities which by the way I never got a chance to explain. Besides, this was java and I am a UNIX guru, but all he did was smile at me as he lowered my grade. I was so furious; Still, I ate my pride and beg the guy, in the end, I left the room before I punch the old guy. I took this to the chairman and even to the dean who basically told me that there was nothing I could do about it since it was his word against mine. I am not sure if this happens in other Universities but there should be some kind of entity in place to protect students from professors abusing their power.
Another problem is that way too many professors are too lazy to change their material from semester to semester. The above professor was one of those. What he did to make his class hard was to ask for increasingly more difficult projects from one semester to the next instead of coming up with completely new projects. As a result if you did not have willing friends who took the class before you were handicapped already. This is usually made worse by those students who have the material and help each other a little bit too much. For example, the Asian students they help each other so much that the professors are then forced to make the courses harder and harder since they have those stupid quotas that limit them from giving too many A's. All that does is alienate and discourage the honest student who is working trying hard an unfair obstacle course. That's why there are people with very high GPA's that are completely incompetent in their field and people like the writer who just give up. This however has further consequences, as American engineers are not very highly regarded. Since a lot of engineering graduates graduate due to their ability to master and play with the system instead of mastering the knowledge acquire through out their student careers.
Another problem that the reader perhaps didn't get the chance to experience is that of making enemies with a well established professor. I am one of those unfortunate students. I once took a course with this professor who was known to be hard. Anyways, this professor's research brings a lot of money to the school consequently; he has a lot of power in the department. To make the story short he lowered my final grade from a B- to a C just because I complained about my grade when I noticed that B- was the grade he gave students who did not complete the requirements. Since, I completed all the requirements except for a ridiculous one I thought I was in my right to complain. One of the requirements was that the java program was to be presented in the UNIX lab. I presented it on my laptop running windows. I was sure he will understand given that I had very limited time due to my other responsibilities which by the way I never got a chance to explain. Besides, this was java and I am a UNIX guru, but all he did was smile at me as he lowered my grade. I was so furious; Still, I ate my pride and beg the guy, in the end, I left the room before I punch the old guy. I took this to the chairman and even to the dean who basically told me that there was nothing I could do about it since it was his word against mine. I am not sure if this happens in other Universities but there should be some kind of entity in place to protect students from professors abusing their power.
Another problem is that way too many professors are too lazy to change their material from semester to semester. The above professor was one of those. What he did to make his class hard was to ask for increasingly more difficult projects from one semester to the next instead of coming up with completely new projects. As a result if you did not have willing friends who took the class before you were handicapped already. This is usually made worse by those students who have the material and help each other a little bit too much. For example, the Asian students they help each other so much that the professors are then forced to make the courses harder and harder since they have those stupid quotas that limit them from giving too many A's. All that does is alienate and discourage the honest student who is working trying hard an unfair obstacle course. That's why there are people with very high GPA's that are completely incompetent in their field and people like the writer who just give up. This however has further consequences, as American engineers are not very highly regarded. Since a lot of engineering graduates graduate due to their ability to master and play with the system instead of mastering the knowledge acquire through out their student careers.
