Sitting down for a new class at the start of the semester may not immediately grant you the bird's eye view that we would all like from our initial semester classes, however, even the best first week cannot mask what it means to have a terrible professor. In this article I would like to offer fellow college students bits of advice that may keep you from allowing one unqualified individual from making you drop a plan of study.
First, my definition of a terrible professor is not going to prove universal, and is not meant to invoke any official statement warranted by a university or other institution. I'm a writer with an opinion who will lay out her groundwork very carefully.
A terrible professor is meant to invoke a teacher leading a class who is blatantly unprepared, deadlines are consistently adjusted since students need an increasing amount of clarification A terrible but well-meant professor speaks about assignments they hope to have due late in the semester that never come to fruition. A terrible professor can be someone who you like as a person, but having a precarious grade potentially suffer from issues you may rule as out of your control may embitter you towards them.
To break this issue down and to help a dismayed student, what I needed to do to preserve my sanity after realizing too late the trap I had fallen into. The technicalities of my advice would, of course, be to drop the class as soon as possible once it is apparent that the professor is not "with it." Especially if you have the luxury of options. For the rest of us, we have to make do with what we have, which would include peppering the professor with as many questions as we can.
I had such a reputation for doing this to my own terrible professor so much that they would not move on in the lesson before locking eyes with me. I was fortunate to be in a classroom with only eleven other students so I could afford to hog most of the attention, however, in a lecture I would recommend sitting up close and sticking to those office hours or using the TA.
A terrible professor is like dealing with a bad boss, which means you're still obligated to them and must defer to their judgment. The vast majority of college students may never deal with an objectively horrible professor, but for the chosen, unlucky few of us who do we must stick to our guns and our resources to make the best of it.
Don't watch Netflix in class even if you can hear the minutes of your life wasting away. Link arms with a classmate and attack the reading like a frenzied animal. Always take formal action with your university if you think the situation is truly dire, otherwise find support in the class, keep asking for the information you need, and ultimately don't let a professor's disarray spiral your own life out of control!
