Kristal Columna

Staff Writer

krcolumna@valdosta.edu

Most of us have had professors that compelled us to submit to ratemyprofessors.com or at least dislike them.  What makes a professor a bad one?  Though some don’t seem to be, professors are human like us, so they’ll have a fault or two.  Does a professor have to deliver an Oscar-winning performance every lecture to be cool? That’s subjective, so it’s up to you.  But, if a professor has one or more qualities that obstruct your learning, he or she is probably a bad one.

The Mean Professor
Ok, some professors are plain out mean.  These guys (and gals) won’t understand if you’ve missed the test because your car broke down on the way to school.  Don’t count on them answering back if you say “hi” to them in the grocery store.  Professors with a chip on his or her shoulder never smile unless it’s for sarcasm.  I had a professor that was so mean she would give you the evil eye and ask you not to interrupt her again if you asked about the math problem on the board.

The Nice Professor
The extreme opposite of the Mean Professor is the professor that’s too nice.  We all love an understanding, friendly, knowledgeable professor, but we’re not in high school anymore so we want our money’s worth.  We want to be here because we don’t want to take orders from grisly, snappy customers forever.  So, a professor that’s too nice is a bad professor because they never, ever assign homework (once a week is fine though!),  they spend most of the class telling stories and talking about everything but academics, and they also dismiss class early…every other class.  The Nice Professor wants to be everyone’s friend and has a problem with being the teacher.

The Hypocritical Professor
“Do as I say, not as I do” is the unspoken motto of the Hypocritical Professor.  No one likes to see someone doing the exact thing he or she is ordered not to do.  Once, I had this philosophy professor who liked to eat donuts and drink coffee during his morning lecture.  We were only allowed bottled water, of course. Most of us can’t stand a hypocrite, and it’s pretty hard to learn from someone we can’t stand!

The Incompetent Professor
Who has been in a class where the professor uses a PowerPoint presentation for every lecture…and reads it word-for-word?  I’ve had more than one, myself, and it’s pretty bad.          These professors refuse to improvise, ever.  If you are competent on the subject you are teaching, you should be able to improvise, with the PowerPoint serving only as an aid-to summarize what you are talking about and act as a visual.  We do like pictures. And the incompetent professor never answers our questions, unless you want to count, “Did you read last night?” or “Consult the book” as a legitimate answer.  I’ve got a professor this term that utilizes PowerPoints for his lectures, but he merely uses each slide as a summary of what he’s about to delve in to and explain.

The Unfair Professor
Some professors pick certain students as their favorites, while casting others aside as rejects.  I really despise these types.    Other ways a professor can be unfair is ones who let some students get away with things that others can’t on a regular basis.  Or, if a professor likes to put questions on tests that cover material not even mentioned, unless it’s by accident.  Tests are a large percent of our grade, and any professor that plays games like that is a real loser.

The Bureaucratic Professor
Last, but by far not least, the Bureaucratic Professor is definitely a type of professor we could all live without.  Most everyone knows what it’s like to fear being one minute late to class.  Or fear getting dropped from the class because you had x amount of tardies, which equals an absence, which is your last absence allowed.  Oh, and they dismiss class no less than zero seconds early!  Bureaucratic Professors go by the book at all times, not allowing for us to be human, with our inevitable imperfection and mistakes.  You get a million stress-induced zits when you get a super-strict professor, and feel too stifled to learn much.
Unfortunately, there’s a lot of bad professors, with varying degrees of terrible qualities.  No one likes to blindly register for classes, not knowing if they’re getting a bad professor.  We can work together to inform each other through sites like ratemyprofessors.com.  It’s not unfair to the bad professors, because there will always be plenty of students who procrastinate and register late-a perfect match!