About a week ago I was studying in College Library when a friend of mine suggested a topic for this column.
In retrospect, this is a subject that should have been addressed when the semester first began, but the idea’s birthplace was so fascinating that it propelled me to use it anyway. While enjoying one of life’s simplest pleasures, senior Dave Weyer was thinking about professors. He thought about their tendencies, their egos, their bizarre mannerisms, their undeniable intelligence, their inability to grade fairly and their trademark of using teaching assistants as slave labor. He thought about all this, wiped and hopefully washed his hands.
While the toilet has been known to conjure up profound ideology, it has never tested the grounds of our education system. I began to ask myself why a bright and dedicated student would find himself thinking of professors during the ultimate moment of peace and self-gratification. The answer is simple. Professors want to lock their beliefs in your brain for the rest of your life, regardless of how useful or clear said beliefs are.
Oprah Winfrey, Martha Stewart, Don King, Jesse Jackson and Ross Perot are all fine examples of how most professors choose to communicate with the civilized world. They are so wrapped up in their own trains of thought that as their speeches ramble on, they eventually stop making sense.
Once this happens, they pull out a source only professors and perhaps scientists have access to, a vocabulary level that makes a basic dictionary piss itself. By that point, they are usually onto phase three, exaggerated body language. To avoid acting like Ben Stein on Nyquil, professors often use their hands to supplement their words. I once had an American literature teacher who looked like he was fondling Aretha Franklin’s breasts every time he made a point. Many professors are also notorious pacers, walking back and forth around the room enough to make you dizzy and vomit.
Regardless of what their egos tell them, professors are human. This means they make mistakes. Like when they warn you the night before an exam about that whole chapter in the book they forgot to cover in class but will still be on the test, proving that all of mankind procrastinates regardless of how accomplished or important they are. They usually end this warning with a slight apology and a corny laugh that can be interpreted as: “What do I care? Hell, my career is already established. Plus I have to finish that book I’ve been working on. They can’t expect me to teach them everything with sincerity. I’m one of the busiest people in the world. I have better things to do.”
It may be the case that you are now in so many junior- and senior-level courses that you forgot what a professor is and your entire academic universe is now run by teaching assistants. If you think professors don’t care about your well being, you should get a load of these people. To be fair, grad students working on dissertations don’t exactly have a lot of time, and it has to be difficult to teach someone something that they first mastered as a sophomore in a high school advanced placement class.
Let us not forget last year and our impromptu weeklong vacation from classes, however. The TAs protested, the professors supported their cause so they wouldn’t have to teach and would have more time to finish their books, and the undergrads suffered.
Students cannot depend on a professor or TA’s goodwill to make a college career successful. This is something every student has to earn. You have to form a bond with them. Look at them as mentors and be sure to kiss ass. Forget the fact that these people derive their salary from you and your fellow taxpayers’ money. Think of them as better overall people and build their ego as much as possible.
Be sure to see your professor outside the constrictions of a class. Taking into account their meetings, their other classes, the boards they serve on, the side jobs they still have in the private and professional fields, the infamous “prior engagements” part of their schedule and meals, this usually consists of one to two hours per week. That isn’t enough time? Go ask your TA. They are busy on their dissertation? Try the professor again? They are at a book signing?
Well, then I recommend doing what they would do. Show up to class with a semi-thought-out speech loaded with highly profound and intellectual riffs that are vaguely about the subject and aim to confuse as many people as possible. Then go write a book.
