A tip for professors

Okay, let's say you're a college professor. Here's a few tips so that your students don't start to hate you.

DO NOT assign seventeen study questions per chapter on three different chapters... to be done in one week. That's 51 questions. And it's only worth 15 points? TOTAL? I mean, ALL of those study questions lumped together at the end of the semester... 15 points? So not worth it.

Also, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE make your assignments clear. So far, you've told me that you want a "Presentation", which to me means that I just have to get up and talk. Crap. But then I'm supposed to have a three page paper to go with it. Fine, I probably should have expected that. But then you hand out this "Report Format" sheet listing all the questions you want answered, with incredibly ambiguous statements that don't even apply to the article you assigned to me. What do you want? Do you want me to teach the chapter? Do you want a summary of it? Do you want me to fill out the questions you asked in list format? TELL ME WHAT YOU WANT!!!

And don't just read straight out of the book. You're literally standing up front, reading the text out of the book. I can do that. I'm paying thousands of dollars for a bloody education, and you're requiring that I attend every class. So you better put some new information into your lesson, or I seriously don't see the point of coming.

Also, don't ask personal questions of your students. "What reactions did you see in yourself as you were reading the article?" is not going to be answered by those of us who are reserved and non-trusting. Yet I know you're going to take points off for not answering it.

Since we're on the subject, don't ask me to psychoanalyze myself as a class exercise, listing off all of my character flaws, and what I like best about myself. I get that you worked as a counselor. I get that you're convinced that we need to relate to people. Trust me, I know, I'm working on that. But your job as the *counselor* was to fix people. Your current job as the *professor* is to teach. Not to fix. So I will not reveal my soul to the whole class just to finish your stupid in-class assignment, which you're not grading anyway.

That is all for now.