OK, I start posting off topic and then the blog gets featured. I’m grateful for the traffic but now I feel pressured to say something about education, or at least to write what I intended to…so here are twenty reasons why I was the worst professor ever — spiritually, you understand. I got good reviews and the students seemed to like me. But I was massively unhappy; so this list reflects my own insider experience of what makes professorial life, with all of its ridiculous social pressure, so awful.
My heroes.
I’ve always wondered, though, what students, ex-students and other consumers, er, interested parties think. So read my list, and let me know how it compares to your own. Don’t name names, please, but do tell me: in your opinion, what makes someone the worst professor ever? Or what makes classes as awful as most students seemed to think they were?
20 Reasons Why I Was the Worst Professor Ever
1. I have tits.
2. I say “tits.” And worse.
3. I hate calling my coworkers “colleagues.”
4. Stephen Colbert and Lady Gaga were my main pedagogical influences.
5. Three words: cougar in training.
6. Totally agree with Ke$ha: the rush is worth the price you pay.
7. Draconian tendencies: plagiarists should be killed or at least branded.
8. In a fire, I would save my awesome wardrobe and leave Vergil’s Aeneid to burn.
9. I won’t apologize for rocking that bikini.
10. Wanting to see “movies”, not “films”.
11. Sincere belief that Tom Petty is more important than Plato.
12. Refusing to treat parents like fucking investors.
13. Being a smartass.
14. Liking bad movies. Like, really bad movies. Like Toxic Avenger bad.
15. Knowing the difference between Kanye, Ludacris, and Snoop Dogg.
16. Hailing from the same rockin’ state as Madonna, Eminem, and Iggy Pop.
17. Feeling embarrassed by my title. Actually, hating it.
18. General unwillingness to pretend (e.g.) that we were God’s gift to the world, that I liked teaching, that I believed in the university’s mission statements…
19. Loving Family Guy more than life itself.
20. Having more fun with students than co-workers.
What makes me dislike professors is when they try to hard to resemble John Keating in Dead Poets Society. I guarantee no professor will inspire me to stand on my desk and say “O captain! My captain!” just because she/he teaches by discussion and not lectures, tells us to put our desks in a circle (even though that makes it difficult for the handicapped students), or requires us to buy a $200 textbook but doesn’t require the reading.
Also, I too agree that Tom Petty is more important than Plato.
Yeah, I can’t tell you how much I hate “teacher martyr” movies, but the sad truth is many profs seem to think they’re living in one. It really doesn’t work, though, and (as Lewis Black once noted) sarcasm seems to work much better as a pedagogical method.
Tom Petty is at least equally as important as Plato.
The unorthodox discussion classes with the circular seating was… err… what my college revolved around. Reading was mandatory, though we only ever had to read the source and never commentary on the source, so there was that, at least. Forcing students to sit in circles in classrooms which weren’t designed for it though… that is wrong.
Haha, you seem like you’d actually be a pretty kickass teacher. Break the boring mold from all those other stuffy teachers
True, but imagine how this makes the other stuffy teachers feel…
Some of those points come down to personal taste; the rest make me think that you’re actually a pretty good teacher. 3, 7, 12, 17, 18, and 20 make you a GREAT teacher, and 2, 4, 10, 11, 13, 14, and 15 make you a fun teacher. The rest might make you a bit eccentric, but the eccentric teachers are the memorable ones. Keep on keepin’ on.
Yes, both good and eccentric — but still unhappy, and not being paid nearly enough to be miserable!
The only thing which could be even a minor impediment is being a cougar… though as long as they’re not in your class while you’re hunting them, I fail to see a true issue.
You sound like you’d be a fun professor to have, and likely a very good one. It also sounds that you don’t necessarily like being a professor. (Pity, really.)
I had a professor who didn’t give a damn, who routinely spiked his coffee with whiskey, and who taught me more than anyone else because his completely unorthodox way of teaching worked.
There was another who started the first day of class with Beowulf, and he read it with an accent. The dude was f’ing crazy though, had been on a forced “sabbatical” for rehab after he got super drunk and broke his arm by falling out of a tree.
Why do so many of my professor stories involve drinking? I think the job may drive you to it.
An astute observation — alcohol abuse is pretty well tolerated in the academy, probably because there are many depressed people. And yup, I hated being a professor, and I’m much happier now that I’ve left.
Happiness matters. I’ll reiterate what I said though; it’s a pity that you’re a good professor who was chased away due to misery.
Not chased away. I walked away, slowly and deliberately. Important difference, in my view!
I seem to have a different view then the others who posted, though I do agree with jwheels, the eccentric teachers are the most memorable.
I don’t think we would have gotten along too well lol
It sort of sounds like your stuck though. Possibly going through a mid-life crises?
I think a horrible teacher/professor usually forces their own opinion down the students throats. They act far to high and mighty and I know it ticked me off when I had a run in with those kind of teachers. As long as a professor has the ability to get along with their students as well as obtain their respect, they couldn’t possibly be the worst professor ever, not to the students anyway.
I tried to get students to have their own opinions, but they were oddly resistant. And sure, this is a mid-life crisis, but here’s hoping it’s a productive one!
Have you ever looked into working at a liberal arts university? I attend one and it seems like you’d fit in pretty well here.
Technically, I was at a liberal arts university — just a really expensive, socially ambitious one. It’s true that campus cultures vary dramatically, but there’s also the culture of your discipline. In the case of Classics, it’s pretty damned conservative.
Classics at Vanderbilt or the whole thing? The former you’d know more than I would about, but I’d disagree – or at least wonder how you define conservative – that the field in general is, or must be perceived to be that way. (I teach classics at a small public liberal arts school nothing like Vanderbilt, which is probably just as well for me!
“Conservative” is a euphemism so I don’t have to say “bitchy, back-biting philologists,” the kind that like to nitpick and act like it’s a real discussion — and believe me, my co-workers at Vanderbilt were not bad at all.
@jwheels, erin, electric, and tom: thanks for the support, but just to be clear, it’s not that I wasn’t good teacher. I was just an unhappy teacher, because it involved pretending waaay too much. Also, what makes you a good teacher pretty much the opposite of what will get you tenure. Sad but true, I’m much happier now that I’ve left.
The fact that being “good” and being “tenured” or on the path to tenure are so different is what makes it so sad.
That you were miserable is the most significant thing (in my book), which makes it OK that you’re not a teacher. It’s sad when someone good gets chased away from a profession because it’s miserable.
Isn’t it easier to be the worst than the best? If you can’t be one, you may be the other.
Question:
Do you mind proofreading something? (6 pages A4).
k.
Actually, I tried very hard to get fired and it didn’t work. And sorry, I only do proofreading exchanges with close friends.
That’s fine. It is always good to ask.
k.
tits are fine in academia (link worksafe)
Smartass.
So what do you do now exactly, if I may ask?
I only dabbled in teaching because I couldn’t do anything else (other than low-pay shit jobs, that is). As an introverted misanthrope it didn’t work out too well, as I’m not trying to sell myself to anybody. I’d say what you need to know for the course and you could take it or leave it. I wasn’t there to entertain (though I’m sure the entertainers get great student evaluations ).
My major problem has been a lack of employable skills. I’ve got intelligence & talents, mind you, but not any talents that anyone would pay me for. Other than niche talents that don’t drive up anyone’s profit, I’d say I was pretty mediocre. (Psst: Don’t tell anyone–but I’m mediocre.)
I’ve often wondered if I was ever cut out to be a part of this world. (And considering that civilization is a pretty artificial environment for a hairless ape, I wonder how many droves of other people secretly think this way, too. Think Supertramp’s Logical Song.)
As I’ve been blogging about, I’m transitioning, slowly, into IT. I think it’s something that most intelligent people could learn if they tried, and programming is pretty welcoming to introverts if not misanthropes. But the bad news is that some non-introvert, non-misanthrope type skills are essential to get ahead in the world, even if you don’t want them to be a regular part of your job. You may not like them, but you can probably learn them enough to get by.
I think a lot of people feel ill-suited for society, but nobody ever admits it. This is why I like comedy. Bill Hicks or Eddie Izzard in particular.
As for being mediocre, well, if that is indeed true, Socrates says knowing yourself and your limits is the key to being truly wise. So maybe you just need to think of ways your niche talents could translate into something worldly that you’d actually get paid for?
I feel the need to defend Play-Doh. As an art teacher, I’ve gotten more joy out of it than Tom Petty, though both have given me countless hours of entertainment. Cover bands usually do a fair rendition of Petty, and the generic versions sculpt pretty wel…what? Uh, never mind.
Agreed, Play-Doh has given me much joy too!
Your comment on IT was interesting. I’ve continued to look for careers that involve the more verbal side of the brain but I’ve always thought about that. I hope you’ve done well on your transition.
A professor I had in undergrad wrote an article called “The Idea of the Writing Center Revisited” (he also wrote the original) in which he complains about how movies never show the professors who try to change things but don’t get fired. Last I checked, he seemed to be doing fine, probably making one of the highest salaries at the school, but continues to support ideas that the administration ignores and always warns students against pursuing PhD’s in his department.
If you got in early, you can be in pretty good financial shape and good on him if he’s trying to make waves once he’s got tenure. A lot of profs think they’ll do this, but the current system beats the fight out of them by the time they’re in a position to do anything. Also, professorial wages have been steadily falling below inflation, so the more recently you’ve gotten in, the worse off you are.
Still working on the transition. The hardest part is convincing people to look past the degree, both the PhD part and the disclipline. Networking is key, so I’m just doing a whole bunch of that….think something will come through eventually, though.
I was warned. I was warned by one of my “colleagues” not to read your blog. I was told that if I read your blog, I’d just leave grad school. Why? Because every single one of your reasons for being the worst professor applies to me. I want to study for my Latin quals by translating Lady Gaga into Latin. My real dream is writing a book that gets me on the Daily Show. I look good in a bikini. And number 1…well…apparently another “colleague” complained that male professors only are willing to help me for two reasons. The only difference is number 16…but let’s just say that my home state isn’t known for breeding stuffy academics.
So when do I come out of the closet and confess my real plan of writing a NYT best seller-turned-action-movie-starring-Angelina-Jolie?
Oh dear. I’m…um….sorry?
On the subject of tits, I have not yet begun to write; the way I was treated (like Elle in Legally Blonde) was inexcusable given my abilities and degree and anyone who derides the smart/pretty problem as frivolous will find a Fury on their hands. So, if Classics be your discipline, I’d say get the hell out now. Or….depending on where you’re at…you could always just tread water in your program while writing that novel instead of your diss. It would be kind of fun to see how long you could rook the dept. See also today’s guest post.
That was my dream too, to write a book that would get me on The Daily Show. Then I decided what the hell, if I couldn’t marry Stephen Colbert (that was my other dream) then I wanted to be him. Hell hath no fury…
I had a Classics professor who I’m sure looked great in a bikini (she never wore one to class, although she rock tight jeans and leather jackets about every other class) and cursed (or almost cursed) all the time, and she was one of the best professors I’ve had in three and a half years of college. I think I would have liked you.
(And on the note of the APA “dress code,” the provost of my university showed up to this year’s in a denim shirt and personalized bolo tie, and half his friends didn’t even see him)
*did rock.
This is why we proofread.
Yup, tights jeans and leather jacket were my transitional attire, before I said screw it and wore whatever I wanted — the jacket is quasi-professional, if it’s structured right. And I don’t know how people can teach without cursing…it’s not that there aren’t ANY cool Classics people, it’s just that there are so many uncool ones. And they’re so darned mean!
I just realized that I never answered the question. Lucky me that you’re not my professor and this wasn’t the test, huh?
The worst professor ever is one who has checked out. Say, a language professor who never speaks to the class in that language but rather sits around complaining about things he doesn’t actually understand and that have absolutely no relevance to the course he’s supposed to be teaching. There’s nothing worse than a professor who clearly doesn’t give a shit either about the subject or the students. I tend to operate under the assumption that all my professors genuinely care about their research and are doing their best to spread their knowledge, and it takes a lot to shake me of this assumption because I’m stubborn. When it does happen, though, it’s the worst and absolutely unbearable.
LOL, this is my new favorite blog…your thoughts are uncannily (eerily?) similar to my own while I was in grad school, before I graduated / escaped from Academia.
I can characterize “what makes the worst professor” by summarizing the majority of my grad school experience: starting with naturally overachieving students, taking away any and all of their individual creative liberties, and then (frequently) reinforcing the idea that they’ll never meet the professor’s standards of excellence. Ever. No matter how hard they try to do as they are asked.
(And how can they succeed in the first place, when their professor forces them to write dissertations on subjects that they hate/were never passionate about in the first place?)
By contrast, my best professor ever let me stay at his and his wife’s villa in the south of France for a night. They showed me around the nearby village, made me a home-cooked French meal, and we all stayed up way too late drinking local wine and talking about Plato, art, and literature. It was one of the coolest experiences of my life.
Looking forward to many more posts! (P.S. I share your burden with Reasons #1, #2, #4, #7, and #13.)
Thanks! Maybe I should turn this into a WoPro assessment — how many items apply to you? Ah, yes, the late-night Plato + wine combo somewhere on the Mediterranean. It’s sucked far too many people into the field, but unfortunately most profs are not like that!
I don’t know, I prefer teachers that are human enough to make me think and give me genuine feedback on my assignments. My favorite professor was a 27 year old grad student that was addicted to cigarettes and shook when students gave sucky answers. That was interesting.
Oh, I don’t think the students minded it at all…the Powers That Be, on the other hand, are not so pleased with ‘keeping it real’!
Maybe my problem is that I’m just a stuffy conservative guy who believes that Plato is really great, thinks that 98% of hip-hop and pop culture ought to make any sensible human being cringe, likes teaching and talking about old books and ideas, doesn’t care very much about clothing, has no idea why talking about television shows and ephemeral pop stars in class is supposed to make ancient material somehow magically ‘relevant,’ and has been misled by the astounding excellence of many women working in classics and ancient philosophy into believing that having a penis matters less than being smart. Of course, I wouldn’t ordinarily describe myself as conservative, or stuffy, or oblivious to clothes, or misled, or under the impression that women in academia face no substantial challenges that men do not. But I’m beginning to think that all of this must be true of me, because otherwise I could only conclude that you are, indeed, from another planet, since despite the incredible amount of bullshit characteristic of academic life and its personalities, I still think it’s basically great and can’t imagine anything else that I would prefer to do. I might feel differently in several years if I get stuck with a terrible job, but even then I suspect I’d think of my frustrations as directed at contingent rather than necessary features of academia.
Still, though I can’t quite shake the sense that your problems are largely self-caused, your decision to get out is admirable compared with the alternative that we have all seen too often played out: the lonely, bitter, 40 year old who has slaved to get tenure at some supposedly prestigious place, but who really enjoys neither any of that work nor very much about her day to day existence, and who therefore serves primarily to make other people’s lives as miserable as possible. Far better not to become that person. Cynicism, being easy, is in ample supply; we don’t really need any more of it floating around.
Yup, you’ve correctly identified your problem. Good job.
I feel a lot of the same ways right now (except about having tits, that is. I’m working on losing the weight that made me have those
). I like what I do, but often I find myself connecting with students far more than other teachers. We get along, but I find myself conversing more easily and readily with my students. I also have to keep under wraps that I got into teaching to begin with because of summer/winter breaks (that’s a dirty little secret most people try to keep hidden).
It also doesn’t hurt that I study television, and I’ve just started my Ph.D. coursework in it to kind of test the water and see if finishing out is the best route for me. “Film” is accepted as being literature…sometimes. Television is still a fight, no matter what. Being under 30 and already contracted full-time, I get a lot of flak anyway, but add to that being a pop culture/cult media scholar, and I’m not quite the golden child classicist others might think professors should be.
The overall atmosphere of academia (especially in the South) can be more than a little stifling. I often wonder if I can keep doing this for the next 40+ years. If it were all senior-level classes, maybe, but teaching 5-6 comp/lit surveys gets pretty old pretty quickly, and I’m bad at hiding my frustration in a broken system.
Well, PBJ, I think I hate you. No, I don’t really, but I have to confess that in the last years of my professorship I was extremely ticked off that I’d gotten the degree in Classics because, yes, all I wanted to do was practice cultural criticism in the modern world, and it sure looked like people respected that more anyway, and hey look at that, that’s exactly what a lot of Communications PhDs got to do, even if the some parts of the academy sniffed at them. If you’re bad at hiding your frustration, I’d think about getting out — but that, of course, is because I myself think the broken system cannot be repaired from the inside. I allow that others may disagree.
Well, I don’t get it. You’re smart, you can clearly sell yourself, and you’ve admitted that you’re capable of shape shifting. Why didn’t you write a paper applying something or other about the classics to pop culture & get a job at a more fun place? Not all universities are as hard-coreand stuffy, lots of them study and teach fun stuff, and none of your reasons for quitting really seems credible. We’re going through a generational shift in academia right now. Millenials don’t want boring profs. The dinosaurs are dying off. Come join the next generation of lipstick-wearing, bikini-clad, cougar profs. There is a fun side. Sorry you never found it.
You’re assuming hard work, high quality and PR will definitely get you a job; given the incredible oversupply of PhDs, I don’t agree. I do agree there’s a generation gap, but not a shift, as the hiring committees and others in power are still, frankly, old and stuffy, and in the meantime universities are doing everything they can not to create new positions when old profs leave, especially for ‘useless’ disciplines like the humanities. Finally, while I’m not denying that there area few exceptions, the university power structure is unbearably conservative by its very nature: you’re not allowed to have an opinion until you’ve got tenure. Basically, formidable, quasi-corporate hierarchy + ridiculously demanding job + median income + consumer-driven ed model = very low odds of it being fun.
I love this! We are kindred spirits! I taught elementary school for 16 years and am now investigating the best aesthetic fillers to minimize the deep smile lines around my mouth from years of faking it. If you think having to treat parents as investors sucks, imagine having to deal with them when their progeny is under-aged and not protected by privacy acts. I, too, was an effective teacher, but I found that I just didn’t fit the mold that most happy teachers seem to easily fill. Enjoy your hiatus. I look forward to reading more of your posts.
This is too cool to be true. Outstanding work Dr. Krauss! Someone needs to sound the alarm that the whole house of cards that is the Ivory Tower is edging ever closer to a precipitous collapse. It now produces BAs, MAs, MBAs, and PhDs who face bleak job prospects. It breeds and reproduces social-structural inequalities along the lines of gender, race, and class etc. And at the level of everyday professorial existence, it produces alienation.
Which is where I come in. I found this by typing ‘hate being professor’ into Google. I did so because, as I edge toward the last week of my seven-year assistant professorship (no tenure), I have come to realize more and more how much I hate academia. And it isn’t just for the Bohemian snobbery or cultural elitism. Nor is it for chewing me up and spitting me out. No, it is the culture of busyness. A culture that breeds overwhelmedness, atomization, insecurity, and fucked up, conniving, power-hungry, insulated, and ultimately needy people.
So yeah, I hate academia at any administrative level. And I hate the gatekeeping power structure by which esteemed scholars in a given field will police its boundaries and ensure conformity of thought and range of content. (“This part would have amplified the psychosexual dimensions of Ms. Dalloway better if you had used Lacan.”) IF karma is real, I fear for what is coming to the reviewers who saw fit to trash me and my work while rejecting it. Peer reviewed? Fuck I’m glad you’re not my peers anymore.
But I never thought I would grow to hate the teaching part of being a professor. Yet as I look back, I spent three years with no guidance, overworking my ass off, learning how to teach. Then I learned how to downsize my workload. Students and I were more relaxed without so much busyness. Soon I had it all down pat. My classes were highly recommended. As I attuned myself more and more to my own lack of happiness, it was clear that teaching was a major culprit. I grew tired of the endless barrage of excuses about missing/late assignments, and requests for leniency etc. Tired of the pressure to always be ‘on,’ to manage class time effectively. Somehow I also created the expectation that I would entertain the students; that I would be able to single-handedly energize large classes filled with disinterested and even catatonic students. As a people-pleaser, it was hard to learn that some people just can’t be pleased. But what tears at my heartstrings most is #18:
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That encapsulates my seven-year stint in an abusive profession and an institution devoid of feeling. I had to fucking fake it. Faking that everything is going well onstage. Faking that everything is ‘fine’ backstage. Faking that teaching is rewarding. Faking that my research is coming along nicely. It’s an institution that systematically targets and roots out the different ones, the ones who, like me, know instinctively that they are out of place; that they are surrounded by creatures from another species. The ones who like Lady Gaga, or like me, the ones who prefer to study naked hippies (see welcomehome.org).
So keep on keepin’ on, sister Amanda. Your wry prose bring levity and context to someone who currently stands on the precipice between the academic world and the ‘real’ world it purports to study.
Wow, thanks for admitting how you got here — I actually have several visits a day from “hate being a professor”, and it makes me kind of sad because I presume that many people feel the way you do. But get the hell out, man! Save yourself, save your soul, do something else with you life! Why not become a motivational speaker if you enjoy energizing classes?
Oh, and don’t call me “Doctor.” Never again, man.
I guess the somewhat sarcastic tone with which I addressed you as ‘doctor’ didn’t translate via the blogosphere. My friends have turned the word into an affectionate moniker, so it would be difficult to shed unless I shed them. I am half-heartedly job-hunting in academia, ostensibly to return to my homeland of Cali. But my soul continues to clamour for recognition and articulation. And though I currently lack a specific plan and direction, I intend to eventually transition to doing something that enables that voice to be heard. Like writing a blog or something so I can vent.
Yeah, sarcasm is tough, and I’m not well-versed enough in net lingo to know what the latest emoticon is. Blogs are definitely a good place to vent, so I look forward to seeing you around the net. Best of luck with it!
Oops #18′s words got deleted. I’ll repost it here:
General unwillingness to pretend (e.g.) that we were God’s gift to the world, that I liked teaching, that I believed in the university’s mission statements…
I’m not sure this will even get through but I wanted to give you asort of auto ethnographic update of my recent travails. So I was clearly like’fuck academimia’ when I wrote that post. But I had no job lined up. Unemployment line was my fate. But on 7/1 I got a call for an interview and I interviewed on 7/8 and was offered and accepted a job. Full time w benefits. Senior lecturer. No tenure pressure just renewable one year contracts. Anyway I have uprooted my life from central Va to central Tx. As a Cali boy that makes me halfway home. But three weeks in it’s proving to be downsized academic labor in a cumbersome administrative bureaucracy. Shining moments of perfect classroom synergy amidst long hours of awkward attempts to engage laconic students. Anyway I have sold out but apparently I still want to escape the profession or I wouldn’t have posted this.
Oh shit! You are in Austin. Just Read your brief bio under your pic. I just moved to Austin and am teaching down the road in san Marcos. So like where can I get a job writing about being frustrated as a prof?
You can’t — make no mistake, this is a hobby and, to judge by the productive hours I spend on it, a very expensive one at that. What I get paid to do is web development.