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College!

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Oli:

--- Quote from: gospel on 31 Jul 2008, 23:50 ---An eclectic kettle will be your best friend.

--- End quote ---

The best thing.

Liz:
Mr. Weasley, is that you?

ampersandwitch:

--- Quote from: gospel on 31 Jul 2008, 23:50 ---PROFESSORS DO NOT WANT TO TEACH YOU.
--- End quote ---

 :?

Are they just in it for the chicks?

benji:
It depends on the school. I went to what is generally considered a "teaching school." This means that the professors mostly consider education to be the larger part of their job and research to be the smaller part. Liberal Arts schools have a higher tendency to be like this. Other schools are "research schools." Here, the professors regard research as their job and teaching as an obligation connected to that job. This is more common in universities, though most large universities will have a few people who are in it to teach, just because they have so many professors.

It also varies considerably by field. In the sciences, the wealthier the school the more likely you are to be learning from researchers. If you're a scientist and you choose to stay at a smaller school, it's usually because you love teaching. This means that science departments at small liberal arts schools often have terrific teachers. However these terrific teachers don't have as much funding for research, so the likelihood that you'll get a chance to take part in any is greatly reduced.

In the humanities things are a bit different. Undergrads are rarely needed as research assistants anyway, so that's not a factor. They also don't need labs, so they need less money from the school. What they need is time. So researchers tend to go to the bigger schools anyway, partly because it's easier to take sabbatical if there's more people in the department. Also, big schools make their name on research, so paying someone to teach 2 classes a year and then write books the rest of the time is a worthy investment. Smaller schools tend not to have that luxury. So here the trade off is that you'll be able to say "I took a class from such and such big shot." But really, you'll have taken the class from the big shots grad student and occasionally bothered to go to a lecture by said big shot. At the smaller schools, you'll have fewer big shots, but the teachers will really teach you themselves.

Ok, so I work in academia. I know these things.

Lines:
You must just have crappy professors, then. Seriously. Out of four years, I had only one professor who sucked and she was in my senior year. Her lectures were horrible and she blamed the class for most of us failing our midterm. (It was her damn fault, because her fucking syllabus was wrong and she wouldn't admit it. And she tested us on stuff we hadn't learned yet.) But the rest of them actually wanted us to learn something. Granted, I was in art school and the professors in my program were brilliant, but even my non-major classes had good professors. And yes, a lot of them were doing research and/or writing books and whatnot.

Also, my school was a public university. Really, I think it is up to the person teaching and whether or not they give a damn about teaching. There are those who absolutely loath teaching and therefore hate all of their students. Those who like teaching, even if they are researching, are usually better teachers. And then you get profs like the one I had who is just a shitty teacher and doesn't know how to lecture worth a shit and you still get a C when you do all the homework and the readings.

Sorry, I just really hated that prof. Mostly because I didn't go to her head of department like I should have and told them how crappy she was being to us. Oh well, I know her evals were pretty crap, because, well, everyone else hated her too.

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