Every person has experienced that moment when they are talking to a friend or overhearing a conversation that goes something like, “I went to every single class and still failed, the teacher sucks.”
Let us be honest here, California State University, Stanislaus may not be an Ivy League school, but it does not pick its professors from Craigslist. The instructors of CSU Stanislaus are more than qualified. Students need to stop complaining and suck it up.
Most of the complaints I have heard against an instructor have come from underclassmen. I have nothing against underclassmen (I am a sophomore myself) but I think there might just be a correlation between “teachers sucking” and a student’s grade level.
Freshmen and sophomores are still new to college. It is a different style of teaching, different classroom structure and for the most part a completely different schedule than what students were used to in high school.
Being thrown into the whirlwind of college is not easy. But, the blame of a student’s struggle should not be put on instructors that have most likely been at the university much longer than the student.
There are multiple steps the student could have taken before that final “F” grade appeared on his/her transcript.
First, they could have studied harder. That is the obvious thing to do in a class that might be more difficult than what a student is used to.
Second, all professors have office hours. If studying is not enough, it is imperative to visit the teacher and figure out what study habits need to change to be successful.
Third, the student can go over the test with the teacher, see where they went wrong and let the teacher know what they find confusing on the exams.
Finally, if a student feels they were unfairly given a bad grade and have the evidence to back it up, a grade appeal can be filed.
But waiting until Christmas break to check grades and see that big fat “F” does not entitle any student to say it is their teacher’s fault.
The problem with students doing this is that some angry student who spent class time on Facebook, copied down the teacher’s PowerPoint slides without actually processing the information and ended up failing the class will find an outlet for his/her anger.
This outlet will most likely end up being Ratemyprofessor.com. Then, students interested in taking that teacher’s class in a future semester will visit that site (an unreliable source, by the way) and trust the bad rating from the angry student.
Remember that there are plenty of people in the “real world” that will be much worse than a biology teacher (they are called bosses), so might as well learn how to deal now, when your financial well-being does not depend on what mood they are in.