Graduate School HELP!

[Entropy]

Hi, I'm a relative newbie needing advice.

Quick background: I taught 2nd grade for 6 years and am now a SAHM with twin 3-year-old boys.

My problem is this: I'm half way through a master's degree and the program is terrible.

Has anyone else experienced this? Did you just plod through, or did you speak up? I'm usually a nonconfrontational person, but I don't want to pay $15,000 for a Cracker-Jack diploma. The classes are so bad that I usually go home and cry out of frustration.

My advisor (adviser?) will be teaching the remainder of my classes. She is also the professor who taught the class last semester which caused my weekly bouts of depression... In short, there's no end nor educational potential in sight.

The only positive side is that the time I set aside to study is now spent researching topics I'm interested in. The negative side is that now I have a million more questions that she has no answers to. I get bitter when I think about all the resources I'm wasting as I sit through her classes.

Has anyone else experienced this? How did you deal with it?

I've always gone directly to the source when dealing with a conflict, so I'm not afraid to go to her directly with this problem. I just don't know the best way to handle this situation. Should I address it in private? Question our activities in class? (we do silly projects that take the entire class period) Talk to the head of the department with whom I have a working relationship?

Switch advisors and then let 'er rip?! UGH!!!

Help Please!

[Chef Dave]

My problem is this: I'm half way through a master's degree and the program is terrible.

Has anyone else experienced this?

I am sorry you are having this experience.

In terms of your situation, your choices are unfortunately quite limited.

You can transfer to another program or you can transfer to another school.

Despite your unhappiness with the overall quality of the program, there's really nothing that can be done at this point. Even if anyone wanted to revise the existing program, such revisions do not take place overnight.

I would be very careful about expressing criticism to the instructor. I have known some professors to be quite vindictive with regards to their grading.

You could express a concern to the department chair ... but if you do this and word gets back to the instructor about who "blabbed," you could be setting yourself up for academic reprisals.

My best suggestion is to simply knuckle down and jump through all the hoops like a good little grad student. Once you have completed this class, have received your final grades, and are quite certain that you'll never have this professor as an instructor again, then you may talk to the professor in question. If you aren't happy with the ensuing discussion, then you should go to the department chair.

When I was a graduate student, I once found myself in an educational psychology class that was taught by an alcoholic. The professor literally reeked of spirits and had to grip his podium to maintain his balance.

Not only was the instructor an alcoholic, but he was a MEAN drunk who delighted in telling racist and sexist jokes.

One of my classmates began circulating among the students to see who would be willing to file a formal complaint with the department chair. Although none of us liked the professor, all of us said basically said that we would be happy to file a complaint ... after we had completed the class.

The woman went to the department chair. The department chair went straight to the professor. He told the professor about the complaint and named his source. That woman went from having a straight A average in the ed pysch class to a C, largely because of the subsequent grades she received on essays and short answer quizes were evaluated by "subjective grading."

The professor also began harassing her in class. Since the woman was blond, he began telling dumb blond jokes. From time to time, he would also pause after sharing an extremely distasteful joke, look blearlily at the woman, and ask her if she had an "opinion" regarding the joke that she would like to "share" with the department chair. He would then laugh, shake his head, and go on.

It was a long semester ...

[Entropy]

Thanks for your response, Chef Dave. Would you do anything differently if you were, today, confronted with a similar experience?

As far as grades: Because she gives grades based on attendance, I honestly don't care about them anymore.

I guess I'll just sit down and shut up and ask honest questions and then do the research on my own. It just bothers me that standards in education are so low.

[merrynl]

You are indeed in a difficult situation. I agree with Chef Dave... wait until after this class is finished before filing any complaints. No matter how much you may not care about your grades, a vindictive professor giving you a low grade could hurt you in the future.

One thing some of my friends did when they were struggling with their chemistry graduate programs was to take a semester or year off. You may want to check if this is a possibility without putting you behind.

During time off (or even now) you could quietly begin looking at the possibility of transferring to another school/program. However, unlike undergraduate work, graduate programs often do not transfer credits as well. Make sure you ask how far you'd be behind.

Good Luck... graduate school is never easy. :)

[busbus]

What can I say that hasn't been said? The way that I see it, is that you are truly doing an Independent Study course and attending the required "Face-to-Face" sessions. (There is a name for this kind of program/course, I hope that I'm right.) Anyway, it would be good if you could form a study group and use the syllabus as a study guide to formulate questions and do research together for answers to share and discuss. Perhaps this would help in learning what you took the course to learn.

You mentioned that you have a set of three-year old twins. Therefore, I know that my suggestion might be difficult to do; however, it might be a way to get "a silk purse out of a sow's belly."

Hang-in there. Good luck.

[Chef Dave]

Thanks for your response, Chef Dave. Would you do anything differently if you were, today, confronted with a similar experience?



A lot of years have flowed under the bridge since I was a grad student. If I had to do it again, I would still have waited until the end of the semester since a lot of grades given by this professor were subjective. As to what I would have done differently, I would have documented his behavior by taping some of his classes. With today's cell phone technology, I could also have snapped off some pictures.

Out of curiosity, is the professor in question on tenure?

Standards sometimes drop when instructors hit tenure because they're no longer under the gun for annual contract renewals. I have heard that it can be very difficult to get rid of a tenured professor.

[Entropy]

Yes, she's tenured and has been a professor for 35 years.
There's no way I can transfer to another university.
I was SO EXCITED to get my degree.
Now I'm just angry. :mad:

What's that Confucianism: "I don't teach the student who isn't eager to learn, nor do I help anyone who isn't eager to express himself. If I present one corner of a subject and the student cannot use it to learn the other three, I won't repeat my lesson."

[BusyMST]

Hi, I'm a relative newbie needing advice.

Quick background: I taught 2nd grade for 6 years and am now a SAHM with twin 3-year-old boys.

My problem is this: I'm half way through a master's degree and the program is terrible.

Has anyone else experienced this? Did you just plod through, or did you speak up? I'm usually a nonconfrontational person, but I don't want to pay $15,000 for a Cracker-Jack diploma. The classes are so bad that I usually go home and cry out of frustration.

My advisor (adviser?) will be teaching the remainder of my classes. She is also the professor who taught the class last semester which caused my weekly bouts of depression... In short, there's no end nor educational potential in sight.

The only positive side is that the time I set aside to study is now spent researching topics I'm interested in. The negative side is that now I have a million more questions that she has no answers to. I get bitter when I think about all the resources I'm wasting as I sit through her classes.

Has anyone else experienced this? How did you deal with it?

I've always gone directly to the source when dealing with a conflict, so I'm not afraid to go to her directly with this problem. I just don't know the best way to handle this situation. Should I address it in private? Question our activities in class? (we do silly projects that take the entire class period) Talk to the head of the department with whom I have a working relationship?

Switch advisors and then let 'er rip?! UGH!!!

Help Please!
Grad. school dilemma? Hang in there. I attend a large university in Central Florida; I will graduate in May. I have had both good and less than perfect classes/professors. Hoewever, I believe that you get out of a class what you put into it. Be true to yourself, and everything else will fall into place.

[SarahJ]

I've had the same problem. My grades suffered (went from A's to low C's) because I dared to question a lecturer and actually proved her incorrect and had the suporting documents to back me up. Unfortunately that was in the 1st year of a 4yr degree and she was a lecturer for my next 3 years. Can you imagine what my grades are like!?!? Luckily my other subjects have very good grades so it kinda shows up as a discrepancy.

[FrazzleDazzle]

My husband is currently in a graduate counseling program-- er, a program to become a licensed counselor. He is in a similar situation in that the program is disorganized and the professors are generally not good. He had a class with the department head once-- mid-semester it became apparent that the DH didn't know the program requirements.

As far as confronting, on any level, I don't think it will work. One of my husband's instructors once made a comment about how students have been leaving a particular comment about his testing for 20+ years on the course evaluations-- obviously he never cared enough to change.

In my husband's case, he decided to look at it that even though he is not learning all that he believes he should in a grad. program, it is something that will help him meet his job requirements .

[Entropy]

I think you're all right. You can't force a professor to become passionate or knowledgable about the course she's teaching. At least she's not in a 1st grade classroom..

I've changed my game plan, now I've got to change my attitude.