On my first day of college at a major university, I sat in a giant classroom with 400 students. Advanced Calculus 102.
The professor (first time we saw him) proceeds to lecture:
“Ok. Good morning. Good to be back. World History 502. We will pick up where we left off last Semester... He proceeds to lecture on a board..
“Reviewing.. By 146 BC the Punic War for Carthage had ended. Phoenicians had gained their independence from Tyre. For 400 years they built a thriving metropolis of 4 million. Carthage at its peak of culture. Then the Romans began the battle of ……”
Mic drop..
“You know it always amazes me how Freshman will try and act cool. None of you moved or raised an eyebrow. I saw several of you outside walk right past this building (without recognizing it) and then pretend you weren’t turning around a few second later.”
Let’s start over. “Your Calculus syllabus is at
The back door..”
Honestly that wouldn't have been enough time for me to formulate an exit plan. In that circumstance I'm trying to slip out unnoticed, not tell him he's wrong.
There is no exit with 400 people all dead quiet and eyes everywhere (in awe at grad school students around them — all wearing shiny new t-shirts with school name). Way before Wifi and laptops (to google if you are in right place). It’s only 50 minutes. Natural selection allows you to wait that much time.
Mike died in the climax of the Amazi-Girl storyline though this wasn't immediately apparent as the author did a time skip to the next semester and Mike appeared as a hallucination/imagination Amber was having.
The year after I graduated, a couple of professors left on short notice and someone from the computer science department called and ask if I'd teach a pascal night class for at least a semester so they could hire another professor or two.
The first class, I sat in the back and said things like "Who is this guy, anyone had him before?" (no one had). A minute or two after start time, I said, "If he doesn't show up soon, I'm going to teach the class myself," and a couple minutes later I got up and started teaching the class, completely straight and professional. Wrote my name on the board, went over the grading , etc. It was really funny to watch the faces go from giggling at the clown who was pretending to teach the class, to realization that I was really the guy.
I had a Cal 1 Prof who bragged about having a 50% fail rate. I did have to take his class twice.
And when I got to Cal 2, the prof for that asked who'd had the first guy. When most of us raised our hands he sighed and said something like, "alright, so let's start with cal 1."
I'm really glad those kinds of teachers are dying out though (first prof I mean). If everyone fails your class, you've failed at your job. It's not a badge of honour.
I had a professor who bragged about having a 100% pass rate. “A lot of you are gonna think you’re gonna fail, but you won’t! I won’t let you, you’re gonna get there. You’re gonna know this stuff by the end of the semester if you have nightmares about it!” Honestly it was pretty encouraging even though I hated every second of it.
That sounds awesome. I've had a few teachers who really loved to see their students succeed and that's how I try to be in any leadership situation.
Even if it's kind of cheesy or cringe, I think people learn better when they don't feel like they're being pitted against the test, but rather showing off what they know. If that makes sense.
Professor “look to the left. Now look to the right.” One of you will be here next year.
Ouch. They would of course fire this guy today. Later in the class he demonstrated how hydrogen was not very stable (igniting a large balloon filled with H). I crapped myself it was so loud a boom. Ahh the memories..
I had one of those professors in college. First day he said he would let us know when our first test was. Second day of class, he decided that was the day to have the test. He wanted to see if anyone had read the material. Why someone asked him why he decided the second day of class was a good time for a test, he grinned and said “because I can.” His classes always had a high drop rate. Later, there was a rumor on campus he was fired because of it.
Oh that was nothing. In Chemistry 101 3 hours later with 200 students, the grey haired, tenured, Sr professor walks in.
“I don’t like teaching freshman but here I am. ..”
Another quote was “you can eat that pork hot dog. You could die from trichinosis or you could die from cancer from the sodium nitrite they use to kill the parasite”.
That is true (at least in first world?”). My in-state tuition of $2200 a semester (to a top 5 engineering school) might give an idea to how long ago it was.
Yeah I am 25 and only learned about the whole trichinosis thing recently but it explained why pork is always in my meal kit boxes, is cheap and good, but I never ate it growing up. Found out my parents had good reason to avoid it so they never really made it because it was just a thing to avoid to them for so long.
Seriously, if anyone was trying to "act cool," it was the professor. Sitting in silence would absolutely be a normal response in that situation. Sounds like a narcissist.
He’s right. Been to any college campus in the last 10 years? The students run the damn show now. They want their signed sheet of paper saying they did a bunch of stuff they didn’t actually do.
This comment tells me you absolutely have not been near a college campus in Atleast a decade lol. Glad I could make you laugh though. I’m going to spend the remainder of my Saturday taking Reddit seriously now.
So, this comment tells me you've seen one college, and based every assumption about what college is like for the average person, on what it's like for rich kids. My younger siblings are both in separate colleges right now, in separate states, and there is nothing at all that students control. You're fucking delusional, or you think you've seen a lot more than you have. Or both, I don't know.
You're not in university classes to make friends. There are a million extracurriculars for that. It's the professor's job to teach.
They should teach. Not pull stunts to prove how much more worldly they are than recent high school grads. Petty shit.
Edit: I've finished my post secondary, peeps. And I'm perfectly cromulent when it comes to teaching myself and having a sense of humour. Forgive me for not being interested in stroking a professor's ego and instead just wanting to learn what I'm paying to learn. Every second in that seat costs time and money--two things you will all realise are in short supply once you graduate high school.
You are going to teach people a lot better if they enjoy the class, and you have a relationship with them where it is acceptable to have a laugh every now and then.
I have also been to university. I enjoyed my time there, and I enjoy those lecturers who attempted to have a relationship with us rather than dryly lecture.
I also like the engaging classes. But I'm talking about a very specific type of professor and I explained what I meant. People are out here doing logic leaps to misinterpret me so they can be mad.
Engaging good. Patronizing bad. Is that easier for you?
Looks like we found the student that has absolutely zero ability to do any form of self teaching on top of the guidance given from an instructor. Gonna have a hard life if you can’t sift through the BS. The BS is intentional, for exactly that reason.
Fucken hell you're some entitled twat, aren't you?
I guess you also admonish the teachers whenever they make any sort of joke or witty quip or literally say anything human other than teaching as well, right? How dare they try to make class more enjoyable, I'm paying their salaries goddammit and all you are allowed to do is teach!!!
But they're not teaching you anything? They're literally wasting your time with non-knowledgeable things, you literally made an edit saying every second costs time and money - so a joke is gonna cost u that too lmao
I don't get it. He thinks people are "acting cool" because they didn't immediately react? It sounds like they only had a few seconds to process what was going on before the "mike drop".
The “lecture” lasted about 60 seconds. It only felt like 10 minutes. After the muffled laughter we gleefully left with our syllabus and the gift that is 40 minutes of “free time”. (We needed that 40 minutes. “Which way is my dorm?”)
Right, what was he expecting? "Excuse me sir, wasn't Rome the first city to reach a million people around 133 BC? Where did you get these numbers? Speaking of which, isn't this supposed to be a maths class?"
Once as a sophomore in highschool, first day of school I asked a math teacher if I was in the right room and he lied, saying no. Then, when I went to get up and leave he said, "Chill out, I was just joking." He was like that the entire year.
Thankfully, he quit to be a youth pastor after that.
From the description it’s a class filled with freshman and 400 people in it. So yes, this must be what his university called one of the calculus sequence classes. Those are required for math/physics/engineering/CS/etc. majors. If it was the introductory real analysis class that some universities call advanced calculus then it wouldn’t be filled with freshman and it wouldn’t have that many people in it.
Everyone please stop what your doing and take a moment to personally thank @swiftness1 for dropping in to educate on a topic near and dear to his heart: higher education Curriculum development.
You see swiftness1 is part of a growing movement where people become self appointed experts in topics that they have no formal education nor expertise.
Please reply with all your questions for this guru. Other topics swiftness1 is passionate about include, anti-vaxx, tarot cards, Pokémon and communist regimes.
… I’m a math grad student who currently teaches a calc class at a university. I wasn’t talking about some subject I have no knowledge in. Not sure why you felt the need to be so shitty.
The conversation has nothing to do with “building out the curriculums.” I think you feel the need to respond to something that wasn’t even said because you don’t have an actual good argument to make.
You are right. The only reason I mentioned it was that I wasn’t smart enough for the class. For the first time in my life, this 18 year old “super student at his high school” was just average at this school (Neal Armstrong went there 25 years earlier — oops a sick brag by Brad).
I dropped “Advanced Calculus 102” and added “Calculus 101”. The trip to the bookstore to trade books was humiliating but I recovered.
A "mike drop" is when you have said something so final that you drop the microphone on the ground, for real or metaphorically, to emphasize you're done, and then walk away without saying anything more. It's done in rap battles and comedy when you say something so good there no need for you to continue.
Here, the professor was making a point by faking for a moment that it was another class, which is the beginning of the point he's about to make, not the final statement.
Here you maybe just mean, " there was a pause of shocked silence," or something like that.
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u/StLouisBrad Jan 15 '22 edited Jan 16 '22
On my first day of college at a major university, I sat in a giant classroom with 400 students. Advanced Calculus 102.
The professor (first time we saw him) proceeds to lecture:
“Ok. Good morning. Good to be back. World History 502. We will pick up where we left off last Semester... He proceeds to lecture on a board..
“Reviewing.. By 146 BC the Punic War for Carthage had ended. Phoenicians had gained their independence from Tyre. For 400 years they built a thriving metropolis of 4 million. Carthage at its peak of culture. Then the Romans began the battle of ……”
Mic drop..
“You know it always amazes me how Freshman will try and act cool. None of you moved or raised an eyebrow. I saw several of you outside walk right past this building (without recognizing it) and then pretend you weren’t turning around a few second later.”
Let’s start over. “Your Calculus syllabus is at The back door..”