5 Things Professors Don’t Know, Part 3

Wait a minute. Is 1.) in the OP for real? It can’t be, can it, that some supercilious male undergrade feels that a legit criticism of a female professor is her…FACIAL HAIR?! This guy makes Flava Fav seem like Dr. Phil.

I enjoy reading these, a lot more than I enjoy reading the bickering between defensive professors and emboldened anonymous students in the comments section. But after installation 3 I’m wondering whether this assignment is actually reinforcing the disconnect between students and profs. It seems that by giving the students a thematic go at ‘professors,’ and finding that their complaints are mostly the kinds of complaints that one would level against people in general who are idiosyncratic, compulsive, annoying, gratuitous, pedantic, etc., the students are being taught to think of these disagreeable qualities as ‘professorly.’ Case in point: profs in the comments sections are writing back, effectively, ‘oh yeah…well YOU TOO.’ Are any of these students surprised, really, that in any sample of people, there will be quite a few who are inconsiderate, socially inept, and all the rest? Seems like a lot of reification going on here.

ag1856–There were several “what annoys us about student” comments in response to the previous Barecca post, some of which were witty and some that were mean spirited. Please tell me you cannot be serious about the donor business as a real question. As a joke, and a bad one, maybe, but not as a serious question?

“That patch is like Germany; we watch it to ensure that it isn’t going to make any sudden moves and dive for whatever innocent bystander is closest. In this analogy, the chipper girl who sits right in front of your podium is Poland.”Greatest lines in this essay. On the whole, this is fantastic. Although a lot of it is meant in jest and good humor, you raise some important points. There’s not a lot worse than a professor with no confidence in himself. You’re absolutely right to bring that up.I apologize to you on behalf of all the professors commenting here who fail to appreciate the joke about peach fuzz. They’re obviously just self-conscious. We should pity them, really.

“You look like the kind of woman who’s reached the point in her life where she doesn’t care about what other people think about how she looks.” Hmm…she “piss[es] you off” because she’s unattractive? Nice, kid. Really nice. You’ve really made a terrific impression here. Were you previously considering graduate or law school?

Ex_ag: I’m sorry if it’s shocking to you that I’m not afraid to put my name on my work. I wrote it, and I’ll claim it as my own. And, like it or not, I’m proud of it.And Mercy_otis: You’re right, perhaps, in pointing out that her facial hair pissing me off probably wasn’t the best way to put it. That does seem superficial of me, and maybe it wasn’t the best choice of words. Then again, when a professor comes in to teach a class after clearly spending the night sleeping in his office, or wearing a shirt so stained in the pits with sweat, or yes, with an unnatural amount of peach fuzz, it can make it difficult to focus on the topic at hand. And to answer your question: Grad School.Much love,Tim

tim_stobierski:I do think you have made valid points here…but the first is way out of line. You are not discussing personal hygiene in your first post. Personal hygiene is a necessity in the professional world and is fair game for criticism. The quantity of facial hair is a genetic trait, same as eye and hair color. You may not find it attractive and that’s okay. I don’t expect your professor is romantically interested in you or any of her other student. But do you really think it is okay to belittle someone for a physical trait? Really? As far as the rest of your postings, they fall in the category of professional interactions, and are legitimate criticisms that should be brought up to the department chair. As an undergraduate, I did go to the department chair to discuss a professor just like your #2 post. The professor actually got a microphone! Sometimes complaining works, and it never hurts to try (as long as you are constructive in the complaints, not nasty).As you progress in your career and life, please be aware of when your “complaints” are just your personal bias (not liking female facial hair)rather than professional issues (personal hygiene, inappropriate discussions of personal life details, etc).

Once is a fluke; twice is a coincidence, but thrice is a pattern. Some features of these essays haven’t been mentioned yet: notice how the style of all three is similar? Stylistically, these pieces suit the medium: shorter sentences, fewer complex elements, simple/colloquial diction, conversational pacing, five-point organization (as called for in the assignment), and sniping substituted for wit or real argumentation. It’s good that students have at least an ability to mimic a trendy on-line style; that ability, as jejeune as it seems, bodes well for them to develop a wider range of styles as they mature. But if the topic is genuine—an effort to reach professors with “things they need to know about themselves but don’t know,” a sharing of perspectives—then it’s an odd choice of style, either inept or simply unaware of how it will come across to the intended audience. I understand that inexperienced writers have to begin wherever they are and grow, and I understand that fearful or weak writers often resort to such a style as a defensive tactic when they can’t marshal a complex argument or thoughtful tone, but it’s an oddly ineffective strategy for this context (unless that’s the only stylistic option they have in their repertoire). Either way, it’s kind of sad, deserving of sympathy and help, a better reading list, some instruction about rhetorical context, etc. Prof B has her work cut out for her!(And unlike some other posters, I wouldn’t actually rule out grad school for these kids someday; they are at least sort of cutesy and clever, which is one kind of first step on one kind of path to the intellectual life—from clever, one can develop intelligent analysis and argumentation skills, at least; yes, maybe they’re flippant and shallow, but they aren’t dopes, just not grownups. We can work with clever/mocking/snarky, at least; a clever but shallow writer can learn how to choose more thoughtful examples and how to share perspectives; can they learn a sincere openness to wider perspectives? can they learn sincerity, or to drop the “sincerity is uncool” defensive mask of the junior high school?) Yes, it’s harder to write a serious essay than a snarky one. But in their defense, I still think a lot of this might be developmental, and thus, pitiable, not contemptible. Today’s essay pushes that line, however. Prof B has her work cut out for her!Style aside (though I do think the style is revealingly, monolithically, unskillfully adolescent in these essays, and does not enhance ethos or credibility, as witnessed by the responses from the intended audience): let’s imagine what the intended audience will glean or learn from these essays. Did the intended message come across to the audience? Was the exchange of perspectives achieved? Or does Prof B have much more work cut out than anyone could ever do? If one were to generalize from these three “S Things” essays, one learns from them that:—Students are easily distracted by surfaces, appearances. (Intended audience probably knew this on some level but underestimated it before reading these essays.)—Students accept current norms of dress/appearance as important, more important than matters of substance. (Intended audience probably knew this, maybe underestimated it.)—Students care about their own situations more than about the overall context in which they find themselves. (Again, we knew that, but learned here of a new level of narcissism & self-circumscription.)—Students cannot integrate or appreciate the viewpoints and perspectives of others. (Writing teachers and Perry-scheme developmental psychologists probably knew this, and teachers of first-years, but profs of upper-division might not have grasped the full extent that these essays reveal.)—Some students use hyperbole & hyperreactivity (did the prof’s appearance really “piss off” the student here?) to express themselves, much as a two-year-old screams to get attention. (Again, some profs may have known that, but some will have been surprised at the infantile sounds.)—Kindness, patience, open-mindedness, and flexibility are not values these students have or appreciate. No appreciation of or curiosity about alterity here (alterity includes more than race or gender: status, age, class, social role, etc.). Nor is the ability to look for substance beneath style, or to seek long-term value beyond a temporary discomfort. (This surprised me, because my seniors, for instance, are thoughtful, ethical, kind people who struggle already to make the world a better place, and would likely consider this kind of snarking not witty but tiresome—I have heard them express spontaneous distaste for juvenile on-line discourse a number of times…)—My generation has gone badly wrong in indulging such habits of mind, and in rewarding or even permitting the lack of intellectual rigor evidenced here. (Profs might not want to admit how much of this generation’s stultifying selfishness is our own fault for not demanding better of them earlier on.)—These students have painful days ahead, as they inevitably encounter the vicissitudes of life. This will include integrating at their own aging bodies into identities that depend on shiny taut surfaces; a shocking realization that they are not the center of the universe; a realization that inner substance (that they have dismissed or ignored in favor of superficial ease) is in fact what counts in the long term. These kids are ill equipped to face some very tough enemies that they don’t even know they have: Time & Mortality, only two of a whole devouring pack. (This we knew, alas.) Or, to put it in a way that can be heard by a small part of the audience here, “smackdowns coming.”

Leontrout: I’ve never read a single Twilight book, nor have I seen a single Twilight movie. But I’m curious to know why it matters?

#20 avoids leontrout’s quite pertinent second question. Don’t tell me we’ve got the academic equivalent of those bogus praising blog reviews of movies or CDs which are actually paid for, or even written by, the company producing the movie or the CD. If we do, Prof. Barreca might want to include a lecture on ethics in her next creative writing class.Well….?

Oh lordy, the ol’ pseudonym complaint again. a) Remember, it applies across the board, to michygeary and the rest of the praisers on this, and the other threads about this creative writing assignment. b) ‘Tis the custom of this and lots of other blogs that unpaid commenters can use pseudonyms. This is something Mr. Stobierski should have known, or found out, by looking at “Brainstorm” in advance. If his appearance here was sprung on him without notice by Prof. Barreca, then his complaint is with her.I don’t detect anybody being “shocked” that Mr. Stobierski would put his name on his work. What many of us are shocked at is the Prof. Barreca would proudly post such [fill in the negative adjectives of your choice] writing with the students’ names attached.I don’t doubt that Mr. Stobierski means it when he says, “Much love.” What I doubt is that he means anywhere near the same the by “love” as the rest of us, or the dictionary, do.I kind of feel sorry for the guy now. Prof. Barreca put an undernourished, undersized, unskilled walk-on out there on the court against Jim Calhoun’s and Gino Auriemma’s recruits, and the poor guy is getting hammered. He keeps taking these desperation set shots from thirty feet from the basket, and they’re airballs by ten feet. Please, Coach Barreca, get him off the court and into the locker room where he’ll be safe from the boo-birds. It’s a tough audience out there outside the classroom.

Goxewu — clearly you’re a student of Barreca’s if you’re able to talk about the discrepancy because what the assignment was “supposed to be” and how it turned out. Perhaps you’d like to explain to those of us struggling to understand the difference? While you’re at it, perhaps you can also how these essays are “trying to be funny” rather than “written in jest.” Obviously you’ve done this assignment yourself if you’re able to tell the students what their own intentions were with their words.

Yes, I am Michelle Carter. Or I’m her brother. Or I’m her mother. Or I’m her classmate. Or I’m her best friend. Or I’m her boyfriend. Or I’m someone who has no connection to her whatsoever. Or maybe I’m YOUR student, and I’m sick of your weird-ass mannerisms and the peach fuzz on your upper lip. Honestly, why does it matter who I am? My opinion is my opinion, and I’m going to share it. Sorry if you’re having a hard time reading it. The solution would be for you to stop.I’m flattered you think my identity is of the utmost importance, but this comments section is about Tim’s essay. If you’re not going to talk about that, then stop talking.

You are not letting me post my response.

Oh.”It is too bad that the editors do not make more of an effort to weed out the bullies and useless, or at least prevent them from leaving multiple comments. Perhaps the editors might also take steps to gatekeep more effectively so that the blogs are not hijacked by trolls.”Barreca thread, literarytype – August 03, 2009 at 06:42 pm.

OK, now we have some basis for a discussion! Tim_stobierski writes @21:Begin quotation:”Anon4now: I’d like to take a look at a point from your post. “—Students cannot integrate or appreciate the viewpoints and perspectives of others.”Based on this point of your observations, one might wonder about your reading skills. Take a close look at point 4 of my essay, is all I’m saying. Let’s hope you don’t teach your students to skip over large sections of text just because you’re angry.”End quotation. Your Point 4′s relevant bit, tim_s, was:”And you’re going to shoot down every thought challenging your own interpretation of a text? You’re going to be narrow-minded and dismiss your students as having nothing to contribute to discussions?”—-OK, as a response to what you perceived as this monolithic or narrowminded interpretive pedagogy, you steered all your “science friends” toward the prof and all your “English friends” away from the prof. (By the way, for this I say thank you: the science kids I have had have terrific analytical skills and are used to working hard.) So much here to unpack. First, it is the rare lit prof these days who remains untouched by poststructuralist, historicist, and other modes of criticism that assume–that take as first principle!—contingency or perspectivalism in interpretation. You can’t really do lit these days if you don’t accept that context, perspective, point of view, subjectivity, textuality, economics of canon formation, and any number of other factors, necessarily shape interpretations. So it would be a rare prof who would actually insist that any one interpretation is The Right Way To Read This Text. (But all profs should and must demand that you add knowledge to your interpretations! see para below next.)Now you may have been talking about such a lone exception, but then, wasn’t this piece supposed to talk more about profs in general than about particular exceptional profs? I know there are jerkish and narrowminded interpreters out there teaching. Bad on ‘em. But what is, I think, much more likely here is that you, not the profs, but you, have misinterpreted. Imagine this fairly common scenario: Prof is going over assigned readings with class. (Prof has perhaps written books on this author and is carrying around a small library in her head about ways to interpret this work. Class of Tim-like students is bright but uninformed or inexperienced. May have only read these texts a couple of times. Job of prof is to help inform/expand the knowledge base, and to explain some part of what she knows about this topic to the Tim-like students, who may already be feeling a little inadequate, if the readings were complex, or generally fearful, if they’re not used to many intellectual demands.) So Tim-like students contribute some interpretations based on incomplete, faulty, or inadequate knowledge, as they necessarily must do–they are students, for gosh sakes, they are learnING this material. Prof, if she is doing her job, will say, “No, actually, that’s not it. Here’s why. [fill in some relevant small part of the deep context prof has in head]” Tim-like student may feel (wrongly) chastised, that his pride has been hurt, that his manhood has been questioned (esp if profs are female, we have to be so careful of their delicate young masculinities), that he has been dissed. In fact he has not been dissed, he has been corrected—this is part of learning. Learning does not mean always being told you are right. Learning does not mean hearing that any halfbaked opinion you pop up with upon first reading of something is right. Learning is in fact the opposite of this: an ever finer, ever more challenging assessment and correction and expansion of what you think you know about something. It should get harder and harder as you go. It should not become comfortable, ever. And guess what: the prof is doing that same thing for herself with every trip to the library, with every new book and article she reads, with every research session: refining, challenging, dismissing and re-calibrating everything she thought she knew. In short, you have misunderstood the nature of the endeavor. If a prof does NOT challenge your unlearned interpretations, she is not helping you get any better. That said, there are ways to do this and ways not to do this. Me? I always look for some nugget of something useful inside even the most uninformed student comments, and say “OK, Tim, you are right that the sky is blue, yes, but actually, those white things are called ‘clouds’ and they are not big sky-rocks, they are in fact made up of droplets formed around condensation nuclei…” And I try to do this with a helpful tone, snarkfree, no matter how uninformed the comment is, and I even try to aim my corrections/expansions in ways that will intersect with some strength I know of in that student (“…Tim, I know you are also interested in ecosystems, and this information about those ‘clouds’ will be important when we learn about the moisture cycle later on…”). Many colleagues are not so careful of their students’ egos and feelings. Maybe they are right. Anyway, what I read in your point 4 is a failure to understand that when a prof responds to your comment–your “challenge to an interpretation of a text”—by “shooting it down” as you say, with a lot of information or with logic or theory or whatever else, and when it feels to you as if your less-informed interpretation has been rendered invalid, then you should say thank you, because you have been handed a chance to learn something. If you are willing to listen and learn, that is. If not, then yes, you are likely to get defensive and feel angry and kick (as above). On the second point: “narrow-minded and dismiss your students as having nothing to contribute to discussions”: well, if they haven’t read the assignment, yes, I do tend to dismiss their so-called contributions. Or if they haven’t read carefully, or if they haven’t been in class to follow the careful building of an interpretive edifice that takes place over a semester, or if they spout opinion without reference to the text. There are many cases in a classroom where the right & only thing to do is to dismiss and discourage student comments. I should probably do it more often. The trick here is to try to take the nugget of good and expand it, develop it, inform it. Here again, students teach their profs how to respond, as some earlier post said, and if I have had three straight classes where students didn’t read or offered uninformed opinion as a “contribution,” then yeah, I am primed to be more dismissive than if I have encountered three straight classes in which students have read carefully and thought hard before opining their mouths. BTW, I’m not angry—I feel pity, actually, not anger. And feel really grateful for my senior seminar kids.As far as profs having you buy books and not use them, I agree: that’s terrible. (But you know what? You can still read them on your own, too…)

I must really love trainwrecks. I guess that’s why I’m back.Tim, since the point has been elided, let me answer the question of why I–and others–are surprised that you are attaching your own name to this. It has nothing to do with “integrity” or “valor” versus “cowardice” and “fear.” It has everything to do with the reasons you wouldn’t post those pictures of yourself at the weekend kegger on myspace or send off that rash status update to facebook. People who will make decisions about your future can and will see it.In your case, you’ve allowed a potentially harmful bit of your writing to appear on the web. Not wise. As you know, once it enters the cyber-realm, it’s there for good.Of course, this brings us to a whole other issue and that is the wisdom of Professor Barreca. As appears obvious here, her students seem really fond of her. However, she has done them a great dis-service by publishing their work and then stepping back to allow this fray. As anon4now has noted, students are notorious for their sense of their own invulnerability. They don’t think about the ravages of old age or death. They see themselves as young forever. And they don’t reflect on the possibility that their web droppings might come back to haunt them.But Barreca should have. And didn’t. And there is a distinct possibility that someone’s future may be hurt badly because of this.For those of us who are less-than-amused by these writings, this adds another layer of irony. Dr. Barreca jeopardizes her students and is popular. On the other hand, those who are inclined to chastise students for such writing, to point out its inappropriate content and its childish attitudes, are the bad guys. But those like me are the ones who really have the best interests of our students in mind. We’re the ones who know that cute don’t cut it. I’ll be the first to admit, being honest doesn’t win the kind of short-term love that Barreca has. It usually takes a few years before students return to my office door to thank me for being tough on them. But it does happen–usually after the student has found a sweet job and been told that their strong writing skills sealed the deal.On the other hand, I’m wondering what Tim and Michelle will say when they return to Barreca’s door in a few years to report how these essays keep getting thrown in their faces at job interviews?

This is brutal.

It sounds like Tim has had some negative experiences in college, which is unfortunate. He clearly feels he hasn’t been given a voice and hasn’t been heard. Now he has been, for better or worse. It’s probably good for us to get a sense of how alienated and angry some of our students are. I suspect that ugly professors are probably not his biggest grievances, and he was probably trying strike a more humorous tone than came across.

As a sort of “Five Theses” to be nailed to the professor’s door, these leave something to be desired. I say this, of course, as a lecturer at a major university. Perhaps the only thing of “value” I’d note here is the brief comment on self-confidence and the transparency of a teacher’s being unsure in front of the classroom. The thing is, though, I’m not supposed to read this for “takeaways.” It’s a joke. And I laughed. Sometimes at my own expense. And that’s okay. Note to all academics (including myself): everything actually isn’t an argument. Yuck it up now and then, huh? Maybe then you’ll see the value in this assignment.

The venom on both sides of this exchange makes me uneasy. Is the relationship between professors and students really so vexed, so hostile? If I truly thought so, I guess I would quit.The students seem to be addressing some tweedy movie-stereotype professor, for the most part. I can laugh at that, I suppose.I must say that I admire the fact that the students were willing to have their names attached to these lists, however recklessly. I am always amazed at what people are willing to say when they are protected by anonymity. I wonder if they walk around by day pretending to be perfectly nice, civil human beings. Well. Off to shave that peach fuzz.

On the one hand, a few of Timothy’s points could be a little more maturely-made. However, on the other, they have been about as immaturely met by people who you’d expect to react more professionally.How immature some academics can be never ceases to surprise me. This is best-observed during election seasons, when a good portion of the faculty reliably begin to offer sophomoric political philosophy and childish jabs at candidates they dislike, interspaced with snide structuralist references that have little to do with anything. And this comes from someone who most likely agrees with their philosophy.The real question here is why people have become so offended by a simple statement of someone else’s opinion. Have you taken it as a personal attack? Likely this student doesn’t know you. Is this person’s opinion somehow dangerous to you or the fabric of an institution you hold dear? If so, have you decided to take it upon yourself to quash the voicing of such opinions?Maybe you just like a good flame war and will use this post as further kindling.

47. I think my comment was innocuous enough not to require protection. My point is that people carrying on a more or less anonymous echange like this one ought to be as civil as they would feel compelled to be if their names were attached.

willk (51),When I read Timothy’s piece I was struck, like avaya, by the fact that Timothy expressed actual anger over the appearance of a female professor, and that those comments about appearance were distinctly gendered. #51 writes that ‘it could work both ways with male professors as well,’ which is true; but Timothy’s article failed to work it both ways, obviously. Instead, it assailed a female appearance–and only a female appearance–and not at all for something that falls within the realm of professional dress/hygiene/behavior (like showering or wearing clean clothes or not showing up hungover or smelling like a distillery) but for a physical trait that isn’t necessarily something that ought to be modified according to professional decorum. Timothy, or his writerly persona, is essentially angered because a female professor happens to be ugly, or to possess an ugly trait. This argument about professional appearances and conduct in the classroom is absurd in this situation; it doesn’t apply in the slightest and everyone here knows that.And by the way (as a grad. student who has only recently weened himself off of showing up to class unshowered and wearing sweats and a baseball cap), if a classroom is a professional space, then the codes of conduct work both ways. Professors should maintain a professional appearance in the classroom, and so should students. They don’t need to be business casual; but don’t think it’s not a disruption to learning when half the classroom has pizza stains on their v-neck tees and is still sweating booze (that’s about as stereotypical a treatment of ‘college student’ as Timothy’s piece is of ‘college professor’).

-goxewuI agree that people can be offended by whatever they like, but the comments made that effectively ammount to “kids these days just aren’t as bright as we were in my day/your generation is lost” seem rather immature and age-discriminatory and, consequently, immature to me.

anon4now: I can personally speak for Tim’s character and I can assure you that he is anything but what you make him out to be. He is an extremely humble human being who is willing to take time out of his busy schedule to help out any of his friends with anything that they may need help with. He does not discriminate based on looks, gender, sex, race, handicap, or any other prejudices you can dream up. His friends fit into any category you can think of. You have made many assumptions based off of one piece of work that was part of an assignment. The only thing you could actually say about him based off of this is that the man enjoys controversy, and controversy definitely inspires plenty of debate. Debate is supposedly sacred among intellectuals and yet all that I have read are personal attacks. If “professionals” are going to go online and insult a human being’s character, how professional can they really be? Constructive critism is fine, but writing about having pity for the students and all those other things really shows how judgemental, condescending, and narrow-minded people can be. He clearly was writing this with some humor in mind. According to you, all students are selfish and cannot integrate or appreciate the viewpoints and perspectives of others. This is hardly true in any sense and there is no solid defense of this argument as it can apply to portions of any generation. I am truly offended by these comments seeing as how I am truly interested in learning new things and I have nothing but respect for the opinions of my professors and others. I receive much satisfaction from participating in debates and outside of classes I am always looking up information about new things. I love to hear others’ points of view on things. I am constantly making sacrifices for my family and friends’ happiness. I know plenty of people my age who are extremely passionate about helping those in need; people who volunteer with Community Outreach, people who volunteer at animal shelters, some of my friends are EMT’s. How can you characterise an entire generation as selfish? Tim has been accused of ageism, yet I feel an overwhelming attack on younger generations.”Students accept current norms of dress/appearance as important, more important than matters of substance.” “Students are easily distracted by surfaces, appearances.” Growing up, I’ve noticed many “mature” adults that have been EXTREMELY judgemental about younger generations’ choice of dress, hair styles, etc. Decades ago, having long hair was frowned upon by older generations. It would seem to me that based off of the bias older generations have towards new styles and trends, that if anything, students are the least distracted by appearances. We accept the way people choose to look, as well as look past any appearances that some may deem ‘unpleasant’. I happen to be unaware of how someone looks until it is brought to my attention.

shouldn’t you all be doing/grading your homework

Before anyone else comments, yes, I am aware that spellcheck failed on my post (see above).

bookgirl,by your logic (attention = success), the kids who shot up Columbine High School were successful. So too were the 9/11 terrorists and the guy who shot up Fort Hood. They all received tons of attention for what they did, so it must have been all for the good, correct?Also, bookgirl, just because you say that these students won’t have trouble with these essays in the future does not make it so. On the other hand, the risk that I and others have pointed out is reasonable and has been verified by the experiences of numerous job and grad school applicants.And as far as #61: I’m not angry. And I don’t think anyone else on here is angry. Just because we’re not tossing forward platitudes and encounter-group bromides doesn’t mean we’re angry. Have I had terrible professors? Definitely. And I sucked it up and dropped their classes instead of whining about it. But I never dropped a class because I thought the workload was unfair or the professor was aesthetically displeasing to me.And just to be fair: if I wanted to offer a list of things professors don’t know, I could do it and be far more substantive than these students.We could start with the fact that professors are as subject to fads as anyone else. Theirs are just theoretical fads. We could talk about the fact that many professors fail to realize that theory doesn’t always work in fact.We could talk about how sad it is when professors hide behind their field as an excuse to be incompetent or ignorant in other aspects of their life. (e.g. Just because my degree is in English, I’m not excused from balancing my checkbook or being competent in math.)The list could go on and on without broaching the superficial complaints that these students embrace from the beginning. The list could also go on and on without becoming a personal laundry list of my own grievances with the way I was treated as a student.

>> shouldn’t you all be doing/grading your homeworkTo #58: not homework, but yes, plenty to do – except this is likewatching a train wreck, can’t take my eyes off, am so appalled!!To Timothy Stobierski, #59 bookgirl, and few others in-between whosupported such blatantly sexist views as expressed by (1):a) I do hope your future employer(s) will Google you before hiring[they should!] and take into account that you not only had such views but also did not engage any brain cells in the decision to post them to the public forum. This could’ve been written off as childish, except for anyone over 10 years old this signifies complete lack of people’s skills and inability to see beyond one’s own [...] – well, dear reader, you can take a look at his number (5) and decide for yourself what IT is.b) This got me wondering on a much broader topic: where doyou, Timothy, draw the line being a dedicated “college consumer” as you are? Really, what do your faculty should look like?Middle-age clean-shaven white male in a suit and a tie? But what if he has different-colored eyes? Too bad for him? Or his glasses are too big? Facial scar? Perhaps, you can elaborate on these points in your future assays. To Dr. Barreca: and here I thought that UC was a respectableinstitution giving out a solid education. Too bad, but if this above is an example of an assay that gets good grades in your creative writing classes, then we obviously disagree on what “solid education” means… And no, in sciences at least, being able to write complete spell-checked sentences is _not_ sufficient.

If I’m lucky enough one day to make a living as a professor after grad. school, I will count myself as one of many professors for whom ‘The Real World’ is not at all a mystery. Whether this is the case because I worked in management consulting, or because I now work more hours as a student in academia than I did in management consulting, or because I know very well by now that the ‘corporate world’ is identical if not kind in comparison to the (allegedly different) academic world, I can promise you that while I am mystified by many things under the Sun, I am quite sure that most professors are very much in touch with ‘The Real World,’ as much as anyone else who lives in ‘The Real World,’ which basically includes everyone but the likes of celeb kids and Hilton heiresses.That said, when students like Timothy apply to grad school, and they’re accepting 4 percent of 400 applicants, and they narrow it down to Timothy and 20 others, and they have tremendous difficulty differentiating between 21 students with near-perfect grades, near-perfect GRE scores, excellent writing samples and personal statements, and great letters of recommendation, some grad student on the adcomm is gonna google the name and find this ordeal, just as someone at the law or consulting firm would be ordered to do in a similar situation. Maybe it will be a boon; maybe a bust. But I’m rather upset about the vastly apparent fact that these students agreed to have these kinds of essays posted on a Chronicle of Higher Ed. blog and seem to have no grasp of the consequences. Again, the assignment was addressed to professors, and the essays are alienating the majority of professors engaged in this debate. And bookgirl: writing is an art, and there are ways of prompting debate without being superficial, immature, and generally uninsightful. These essays read like student blog posts, and they’re supposed to qualify as exemplary work handed in for credit in a college course. Prof. B is a comedian (apologies; I hate ‘comedienne’; it’s more gendered); but these kids aren’t supposed to be drafting material for a comedy club, as far as I understand.

to suomynonaMany respected publishing houses consider bloggers the “new” authors and are offering generous publishing contracts to these writers.

Proofred? Are we really going to start insulting typos? “Proofred” isn’t a word either. How about we stick to better arguments than that?

skainte417: Thanks for getting my holiday off to a great start with your incredible imitation of Somebody Not Getting It.

Ummm–no. Mr. Trout’s little jab at bookgirl’s apologia pro Timmy was just as narrowly focused, just as off-topic (or marginally on-topic) as the complaints of the li’l nimrods of UConn. Along with “should of,” which slainte417 did not remark, “proofred” (in a post responding to bookgirl’s assertion of publishing expertise) is, granted, “humor” about on the level of “peach fuzz,” which means that it is about on the level of a brightly sarcastic eleven-year-old. And still it flew right over slainte’s head.

ex_ag, you are my brand-new hero this week!

Katie: Why the face?!?

And so, with #76, we have circled back to #58, #61, and the world famous deathbed aria that is #66. We have lost, friends. The forces of darkness may not have wisdom or wit, but they have shamelessness and a gut-level belief in the idea of saying the same “counterintuitive” thing over and over again till it has the ring of truth.And, yes, Katie, that is a real gobstopper of a post. I imagine that, “as a young man,” what Timmy has better to do is to hide beneath the covers and weep softly, but that is all I can really understand from that assemblage of words.

Wow – the superficiality and sheer rudeness of today’s students takes my breath away. When I was a student myself (not that long ago; in the mid-90s) we might have had genuine grumbles or points to make about our professors – normally to do with how they lectured or presented the material, or what they chose to teach, or how thoroughly they covered the syllabus. But comments like this – never. Tim: personal remarks are just bad manners. Didn’t your parents teach you that? To comment at all on your female professor’s “peach fuzz” is, whatever you might privately think of her appearance, mindblowingly rude, uncouth and in very poor taste. (Not to mention appearing weirdly pathological to those of us who are not internal to your generation’s peculiar obsession with depilation and horror at all forms of body hair – something that is, you may be intrigued to learn, a very recent historical effect.) I recently had a student, to my horror, and in a class discussion, make an oustandingly rude personal comment to my face about how I should take care to notice that I was getting a few gray hairs and do something about it “because it’s not normal to get gray hairs in your thirties”. Bravo to anon4now, whose post above was excellent, particuarly in noting that: “These students have painful days ahead, as they inevitably encounter the vicissitudes of life. This will include integrating at their own aging bodies into identities that depend on shiny taut surfaces; a shocking realization that they are not the center of the universe; a realization that inner substance (that they have dismissed or ignored in favor of superficial ease) is in fact what counts in the long term.” Some of our students have a very big reality check coming.