Professors Who Suck

I changed majors and was resigned to going 5 years. Met with my new advisor, Bruce Babcock, at the end of my third year. He asked if I wanted to go 5, I’m like uh no but there’s not much choice. He started asking questions about classes, started writing then. Pushed a paper in front of me and said, you change your emphasis to mine, take 17/18/17 for credits over the next 3 semesters and I will get you out in 4 and 1/2. I was working 30 plus some hours a week.

It nearly killed me and I had no personal time, but I carried around a 3.4 during that and saved a bunch. So, not saying B.B. sucked, I’m saying every other advisor I had stunk. My first I met at orientation and he advised taking a class, then an hour off, another class and an hour break. Worst advise I ever got.
 
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dvised taking a class, then an hour off, another class and an hour break

I hated having that schedule. I always preferred to bunch them up so I'd only have to go to campus once, with maybe an hour off at noon (so you really got 1:20 off) to work on some homework or lab stuff.


That came back to bite me second semester of sophomore year. Was in class from 8-5 on MWF. That was such a drain, but at least I had Tuesday and Thursday as off days.
 
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My advisor was really nice, but didn't see her as much cause she was pregnant twice in the 4 years. She did help me finagle a double major and a minor into 4.5, and it was solely on her manuevering skills to figure out what I could overlap, etc. and still get credit in either or of the majors/minor.

She left after my first semester year 4, I believe, and the lady that came in after her never even reached out to introduce herself. First meeting with her I walk in, having just 2 semesters left. She tried to tell me I was over-reaching on trying to graduate in 4.5... I only had 15 credits my final semester with the prospective set up... It was as smooth of a double/minor I could've ever expected.

Safe to say I never went back in for advice from her, and only saw her one more time on campus before graduating.
 
I hated having that schedule. I always preferred to bunch them up so I'd only have to go to campus once, with maybe an hour off at noon (so you really got 1:20 off) to work on some homework or lab stuff.


That came back to bite me second semester of sophomore year. Was in class from 8-5 on MWF. That was such a drain, but at least I had Tuesday and Thursday as off days.

My last semester I had class from like 8-3 on Tues and Thurs, and 1 class on W/F. After going to my first 8am on Friday I dropped that class since I was only taking because it sounded interesting, but Mug night was much more interesting.
 

Her ex hubby was actually our underclassman at the MBA program that time. I still remember he always mentioned how much he loved his wife and that was the reason he came to ISU to follow her (he already had a job - I think he might even be close to getting his greencard). He looked like a very nice guy.

Got back to Ames after Christmas break and started reading Iowa state Daily and was extremely surprised to read the article that he stabbed her on campus
 
All of my professors were pretty good. We had a pretty bad or strange Calc II professor. Gave some ridiculously hard lab assignments a couple times. The weird part was we would go to his office (something I rarely did) during office hours and knock on the closed door. Several times a group of us would wait 15-30 minutes in the area and then he would finally answer the door. Hmm. what ya doing in there bud?
 
My last semester I had class from like 8-3 on Tues and Thurs, and 1 class on W/F. After going to my first 8am on Friday I dropped that class since I was only taking because it sounded interesting, but Mug night was much more interesting.

I decided I wanted to do a master's degree during my junior year. ISU had a program where you overlap the two degrees and got to double-count two grad classes as undergrad electives. I took the opportunity to shorten things up by doing that. It saved me a semester of grad school, but I always regret that I never got that final "coast" semester senior year.
 
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I graduated in 2002 so lot of my profs are gone but I see the worst math teacher I have ever had at any level of school is still there: https://math.iastate.edu/directory/ananda-weerasinghe/ Even his TA's would tell you to forget what he said in lecture, they'd show you a better way.

Took a HR class as an elective once thinking it would be a good thing to add to my business degree background. Guy's name I think was Ben Johnson, even the HR majors in that class said they got nothing of use. One time he made us watch Michael Moore's "Downsize This" and write a paper on it. Looking back at that now I shake my head at that more than I did when it happened. Pretty sure he violated the not looking at evaluations until after the semester policy too as the lecture after we filled them out he went on an angry rant at the class that we all agreed had to come from what we put on that.
 
Not that I disliked the guy but Fred Choobineh and MIS 330 can **** off. What a complete waste of time. The only thing thing I took away from that class was that Algona, IA effin rocks.

Maybe it's a generational thing but Fred was one of my most favorite instructors and at the time just about everyone I knew that took his class felt the same. Easy class to get a good grade in too, just show up every day and pay attention as he gave away a lot of free points randomly just for being present.
 
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Oh yeah, and anyone back in the late 90's and early 2000's probably would agree that both the Tomlinson's (Mr. and Mrs.) that taught Computer Science were both horrible. It's pretty sad when 1 exam was so poorly written that the class average was below 50% and they do not grade on a curve. Maybe a handful of students got a passing grade on that exam and had a few people pissed off enough about it they called him out on how bad the exam was and how some of the questions was on material we had not even covered yet.

Got enough stories about them to write a lot more on too. let's just say the last COBOL program I did by the morning it was due I had started to hit the Jack Daniels a few hours before turn in. That lecture I think most were like me, they turned in their program and skipped lecture to either go back and sleep or hit the booze some more after a rough night.
 
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Oh yeah, and anyone back in the late 90's and early 2000's probably would agree that both the Tomlinson's (Mr. and Mrs.) that taught Computer Science were both horrible. It's pretty sad when 1 exam was so poorly written that the class average was below 50% and they do not grade on a curve. Maybe a handful of students got a passing grade on that exam and had a few people pissed off enough about it they called him out on how bad the exam was and how some of the questions was on material we had not even covered yet.

Got enough stories about them to write a lot more on too. let's just say the last COBOL program I did by the morning it was due I had started to hit the Jack Daniels a few hours before turn in. That lecture I think most were like me, they turned in their program and skipped lecture to either go back and sleep or hit the booze some more after a rough night.

You know that grading on a curve doesn't mean that you just raise the scores, right?
 
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Woah woah woah. Who doesn't like Fred?!?!
Maybe it's a generational thing but Fred was one of my most favorite instructors and at the time just about everyone I knew that took his class felt the same. Easy class to get a good grade in too, just show up every day and pay attention as he gave away a lot of free points randomly just for being present.

I thought he was a great guy and I laughed a lot in that class but I don't think I really learned anything at all in that class
 
I'm trying to remember what class I dropped when I was a junior. I think it had something to do with either english or psychology. The lecturer was very boring, and it sounded like a lot of written reports were required. The first class was bad enough that I went online and dropped it while still in class and found some freshman level biology course to waste 3 elective credits on. I think that also freed up my Friday mornings, which helped with mug night.
 
I changed majors and was resigned to going 5 years. Met with my new advisor, Bruce Babcock, at the end of my third year. He asked if I wanted to go 5, I’m like uh no but there’s not much choice. He started asking questions about classes, started writing then. Pushed a paper in front of me and said, you change your emphasis to mine, take 17/18/17 for credits over the next 3 semesters and I will get you out in 4 and 1/2. I was working 30 plus some hours a week.

It nearly killed me and I had no personal time, but I carried around a 3.4 during that and saved a bunch. So, not saying B.B. sucked, I’m saying every other advisor I had stunk. My first I met at orientation and he advised taking a class, then an hour off, another class and an hour break. Worst advise I ever got.

My last semester (went 4.5 years because I had to intern for a semester) I was all signed up for my classes. About a week in, my advisor calls me in and said there was a mistake. I shouldn’t be in Class A, I should be in Class B to fulfill my JLMC requirement. Switched me over into Class B. Three weeks after that I get a call from a new advisor asking why I’m in Class B. I need to be in Class A. They switched me back but the teacher wouldn’t allow me to make up what I missed and the whole class was three stories we wrote, so I missed the first story. So I had to ace the last two just to get a high enough grade to barely pass the class.

Almost didn’t graduate because of it.
 
I graduated in 2002 so lot of my profs are gone but I see the worst math teacher I have ever had at any level of school is still there: https://math.iastate.edu/directory/ananda-weerasinghe/ Even his TA's would tell you to forget what he said in lecture, they'd show you a better way.

Took a HR class as an elective once thinking it would be a good thing to add to my business degree background. Guy's name I think was Ben Johnson, even the HR majors in that class said they got nothing of use. One time he made us watch Michael Moore's "Downsize This" and write a paper on it. Looking back at that now I shake my head at that more than I did when it happened. Pretty sure he violated the not looking at evaluations until after the semester policy too as the lecture after we filled them out he went on an angry rant at the class that we all agreed had to come from what we put on that.

Roy Johnson? I graduated in 2002 also, and had the same experience with Roy. Think it was MGMT 370 I took with him or something. But yeah, somehow he got a hold of the evaluations before the end of the semester and we all had to sit through an hour of him ranting about some of the comments that were made in them and him trying to refute them.
 
You know that grading on a curve doesn't mean that you just raise the scores, right?

I get that, they didn't grade on a curve so my point is he had no issues giving all but maybe 5 people in the class an F for that exam. How many of you ever took an exam where the class average was below 50% on an exam let alone in a class where they did not grade on a curve either. Never had a class other than that one come close to having such a low average and when there were students who probably had the top grades in that class pissed about the exam too it says a lot about that instructor when he wouldn't budge on the grading or admit he maybe didn't write a fair exam or prep us in lecture enough. I just remember people pointing out certain questions during the review and asking where we were presented the relevant material on it and he struggled to come up with an answer that didn't reek of BS trying to cover his own butt that maybe he made some mistakes putting those questions on the exam.
 
Roy Johnson? I graduated in 2002 also, and had the same experience with Roy. Think it was MGMT 370 I took with him or something. But yeah, somehow he got a hold of the evaluations before the end of the semester and we all had to sit through an hour of him ranting about some of the comments that were made in them and him trying to refute them.

Yeah it was Roy! Absolutely a waste of my time taking his class. Sad thing is I had a friend who was an HR major taking it as a requirement and he had the same opinion, didn't learn jack. Maybe you and I were in that same class, that sounds exactly what he did to our class and we all thought it was uncalled for and I know at least 1 person went straight to the administrative office to complain about him as soon as that class was over. It was very apparent by his rant he had read his evaluations he handed out recently.