Professors Who Suck
- Thread starter ISUCubswin
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It was Perkins, so...not so much. I'm not that burned up about it since he taught the whole semester, but you can imagine how one of his co-workers would feel knowing they wrote and graded a bunch of finals and he just paid for breakfast.
Looking back on it, yeah, it's funny. But at the time, it sucked. I mean, I know that "No" is going to be the worst grade. But which is better? "OK" or "Good"?
And then asking him to differentiate between them. "Oh, well that means you have a good idea of what the question was asking you." Total non-answer.
So as someone who’s probably going to Iowa State for architecture, is there anyone I need to look out for?
I'd worry about getting into the architecture program first. It's crazy competitive.
I know a few architects and I'm always surprised at what they actually do. It seems like most people with architecture degrees end up being project managers. I pictured them all sitting at a big table dreaming up cool ideas for buildings, bridges, etc...but it seems like that's about 1% of architects. The rest are helping plan expansions to hospitals, designing grade schools, etc.
Had him for 101 and he was teaching Grad school stuff. He only taught 101 and grad courses at the time I took it.
I worked in the design library and I think people were really surprised by how much math and science it is. A lot of the lower classman i think think that they are going to be mostly drawing blueprints.
Or designing the same building over and over again (Hy-Vee, Walmart, military, etc.)
There was a prof in the Civil Eng. department who taught structures. The first few assignments of his class, he would grade as 100% or 0%, no partial credit. Because in his eyes, "it either stands or it falls down." Which, ok, that's fine, but you're not helping me learn anything that way. Thankfully, he would usually back off that stance.
Dan Douglas?
Had him for freshman honors english - Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance for about 80% of the class, and the same "rewrite as often as you like" policy.
Cheech, Chong, and Dan Douglas.
One of my architect friends is currently under contract to Holiday Inn helping them update their locations in the area. Not even new stores...just helping the local owner pick from the standard schemes approved by HI Corporate. I don't think it's what she thought she'd be doing when she went through architecture school...
Semi-related, since it involves a bad ISU professor:
My girlfriend (now wife) was a biology major. She breezed through Calc I (and learned a lot in the class) but her Calc II prof was just awful. She'd show me the stuff he gave out as assignments and I couldn't figure them out even though I'd had 3 semesters of Calc + Diff EQ at this point. I think he really just didn't want to teach Calc II and took it out on the students.
For her major, the requirement was intended to be take two semesters of calc or two semesters of statistics. I convinced her to drop the class and take Stat 101 next semester, as the catalog just said "two semesters of calculus or statistics from an approved list", not "two semesters of calculus or two semesters of statistics from an approved list". She checked with her advisor, who confirmed that the intent was two take a two-course sequence but acknowledged the loophole existed to take just Calc I and Stat I. So she ended up taking a blowoff stat course instead of retaking Calc II.
And that's why the Biology requirements changed from this in the 97-99 catalog:
To this in the 99-01 catalog:
I took a quick look at the current catalog and it now explicitly mentions one semester of each as a valid option, so at some point they backed off that stance.
My girlfriend (now wife) was a biology major. She breezed through Calc I (and learned a lot in the class) but her Calc II prof was just awful. She'd show me the stuff he gave out as assignments and I couldn't figure them out even though I'd had 3 semesters of Calc + Diff EQ at this point. I think he really just didn't want to teach Calc II and took it out on the students.
For her major, the requirement was intended to be take two semesters of calc or two semesters of statistics. I convinced her to drop the class and take Stat 101 next semester, as the catalog just said "two semesters of calculus or statistics from an approved list", not "two semesters of calculus or two semesters of statistics from an approved list". She checked with her advisor, who confirmed that the intent was two take a two-course sequence but acknowledged the loophole existed to take just Calc I and Stat I. So she ended up taking a blowoff stat course instead of retaking Calc II.
And that's why the Biology requirements changed from this in the 97-99 catalog:
To this in the 99-01 catalog:
I took a quick look at the current catalog and it now explicitly mentions one semester of each as a valid option, so at some point they backed off that stance.
I'm just here to put another vote in for Quirmbach.
Had econ 101 with him my first semester at ISU, and yet he's one of the few professors names' i remember, because his class was that bad. So many times i walked away from the class having no idea what i'd just written down, just trying to follow along with him at the board.
Also i think i had the Business Communications teacher others were complaining about. She had a habit of adding random requirements to projects mere hours before they were due, so if you were on campus already you might just be ******.
Had econ 101 with him my first semester at ISU, and yet he's one of the few professors names' i remember, because his class was that bad. So many times i walked away from the class having no idea what i'd just written down, just trying to follow along with him at the board.
Also i think i had the Business Communications teacher others were complaining about. She had a habit of adding random requirements to projects mere hours before they were due, so if you were on campus already you might just be ******.
I had a Math 165 instructor who was pretty bad, and he took off for Russia the week before the first midterm. He left us with another prof who was obviously less than thrilled to be there, but she would only be there for one week and to give the exam.
On the Monday when the original prof was to return, his substitute prof was still there. She explained that the original prof had gotten sick on his trip (hepatitis while in the falling USSR) and didn't know when (if) he would return, and that she was too busy to take on this class. For the next 9 weeks we were bounced between 8 different profs, some for a day or two, some for a little more than a week.
The wheel of instructors was none-too-helpful, but when the original prof returned, he was worse than before he left. That was my worst grade while I was at Iowa State, by far.
I was always careful to check out who the instructors where while I was finishing my Math sequence, but lo and behold, I guess the original prof owed some favors from the time he was gone. When I went to take Math 265, confident that the original wouldn't be my prof for that class, I was horrified to see original prof walk in and start paying back his colleagues who had covered for him.
On the Monday when the original prof was to return, his substitute prof was still there. She explained that the original prof had gotten sick on his trip (hepatitis while in the falling USSR) and didn't know when (if) he would return, and that she was too busy to take on this class. For the next 9 weeks we were bounced between 8 different profs, some for a day or two, some for a little more than a week.
The wheel of instructors was none-too-helpful, but when the original prof returned, he was worse than before he left. That was my worst grade while I was at Iowa State, by far.
I was always careful to check out who the instructors where while I was finishing my Math sequence, but lo and behold, I guess the original prof owed some favors from the time he was gone. When I went to take Math 265, confident that the original wouldn't be my prof for that class, I was horrified to see original prof walk in and start paying back his colleagues who had covered for him.
Nope. I can’t temember his name, just that he was Pakistani with a degree in IT teaching English 3-0-something. Whatever technical writing was. 314 maybe?
There was a lot of Israel/Palestine talk in that class too.
Anyone else have Eric Northway for religion courses? I took World Religions (Rel 210?) from him and it was a lot of fun. It was really informative and he made the class very easy; if you showed up for lecture you would ace the exams. We took 1 week of class to watch The Matrix then did a group assignment to write an essay on the religious significance of the movie.
I signed up for World Religion in America with him the summer after I took World Religions. I asked him at the final if the class would be similar. He said "smart choice, that class is basically a repeat of this one...should be an easy A for you."
I signed up for World Religion in America with him the summer after I took World Religions. I asked him at the final if the class would be similar. He said "smart choice, that class is basically a repeat of this one...should be an easy A for you."
