Most wouldn't. The ***** went into hiding after the article came out.
Professors Who Suck
- Thread starter ISUCubswin
- Start date
Most wouldn't. The ***** went into hiding after the article came out.
Not sure if the professors were bad as much as I was just a bad match for the huge 100+ person classes that were graded based on 3-4 exams and nothing more. I remember working my tail off for one such Bio class where the prof simply told me to get take notes on his lecture, and highlight anything in the text pertaining to the lecture.
I spent an entire break making/memorizing note cards in flashcard style, we're talking probably 200 cards, and went to take the test (which was right after break) to find maybe 5 questions related to my note cards. It might as well have been in code. I knew so much, but so very little.
Best prof I had was in a class that had nothing to do with my degree--a Lit film class where we'd study symbolism within text and film segments and final project was creating a short screen play. Was way fun and the professor was incredible to work with.
College had some fun parts but I never understood people who look at it as such a great life--you had to take a bunch of exams, sneak beer around and were poor.
Post-college/20's: no exams or class schedule, get a job that pays enough to have some left for fun nights with better beer.
I spent an entire break making/memorizing note cards in flashcard style, we're talking probably 200 cards, and went to take the test (which was right after break) to find maybe 5 questions related to my note cards. It might as well have been in code. I knew so much, but so very little.
Best prof I had was in a class that had nothing to do with my degree--a Lit film class where we'd study symbolism within text and film segments and final project was creating a short screen play. Was way fun and the professor was incredible to work with.
College had some fun parts but I never understood people who look at it as such a great life--you had to take a bunch of exams, sneak beer around and were poor.
Post-college/20's: no exams or class schedule, get a job that pays enough to have some left for fun nights with better beer.
I'm sure all the douchers from the western suburbs love when he bags on the state of Iowa, that's their jam too.
Could be coincidence, I don't know what timeframe you reference, but I think I had a Li as a chem-lab prof (maybe the name-spelling is off) -- I didn't have him for lecture. (This would've been 30 years ago, so it might be a completely different person).
He sure gave the impression of being a nightmare professor to the undergrad students (I never had him in AerE undergrad). He was a very good professor for several of my graduate EM courses, though.
The undergrad classes were required and still in the "weed you out" phase, I think. Once you get to grad school, he probably figured you'd already had your trial by fire.
The semester I took Mech. of Mat. from Sturges, he got in hot water with the Dean of Students. As I recall the story, each exam had 3 problems. His TA's would grade one each, and Sturges would grade the third himself. As you might expect, he was a notoriously difficult grader. There was a group of students that had to miss an exam due to another university event. They got permission from the department and Sturges to take the exam on another day. However, when they got their exams back, they all failed. Turns out, Leroy graded all 3 problems himself instead of letting the TAs grade two, as was procedure for the rest of the exams. The students petitioned and won. The next semester, Leroy was relegated to being a TA for Mech. of Mat.
Structural Steel design was known to be the hardest course in the Civil Eng curriculum when I went through. The course requires you to learn how to use the AISC steel code: a 3" thick manual in 6 pt font that is the industry standard for steel design. The prof who taught it when I went through (Abendroth) had a handful of criteria you had to meet to get a passing grade in the course. These included things like: complete all homework assignments, average 50% or greater on homework, etc. But the best one was that you had to average "at least" 25% on all the exams. I think the top score in that class was somewhere in the low 70s.
I had Roy Johnson in 2010 or 2011 and that was such a weird class. It was very rare for him to make it within 10 minutes of the scheduled class start time. We would have quizzes and he did the elementary school thing where you pass it two places to the right while he told you what he thought the correct answers should be irregardless of what the book said it was. Numerous people complained and went to the deans office but the story I was given through the grapevine so take it with a grain of salt was that he was tenured and his wife worked in the presidents office or something so their hands were pretty much tied.
I had two or three undergrad classes with that guy. Statics, mechanics, maybe something else. The classes were really hard but I think that was just because of the material. I just remember the curves being insane.
Whenever I would ask him questions one on one he was a really decent guy. Just very dry. He would wear his leather biking gear to class every once in a while and we'd all chuckle.
I just read the Atlantic piece. Wow, that is...something. The guy is a good writer, but talk about elitist. I can't imagine what it's like to spend a day in his life; constantly turning your nose up at every sight you see. My goodness. I'm one of the kids who grew up and was educated in Iowa but moved away. However, I still hold a special place in my heart for my upbringing and my little home town.
Original hate thread when it dropped:
https://cyclonefanatic.com/forum/threads/another-reason-to-dislike-the-university-of-iowa.136080/
I think I know who your talking about. She was a large girl with fro like red hair. I had her as a TA for one of the common history calsses. Personally, not a fan of her.
When was this as the way they have it now at least for me was awful. My advisor was the same after I transferred from open option to graduation. She was just all around awful. She didn’t seem to know what she was doing. I had transfer credits that were good that i had to go over her head to get approved. Whenever I talked to her it would be a big unconvinced and she’d get frustrated that I didn’t know what I shouldn’t do. I don’t know maybe that’s why I was asking my advisor. I also somehow got signed up but for a class that I couldn’t take even after I went over the schedule with her. Mind you she doesn’t say anything until after the spring semester and I have to figure it out by myself over the summer. It ended up getting me into one of my favorite classes but why was it so difficult for her to let me know when I talked to her or at least when there was time to do anything. Some of this is my fault but her being so poor led me to kind of ignore the career services people and neglect tha that stuff because I thought they weren’t very helpful. Looking back they were pretty decent and I should have used them more. I don’t know if I just had a bad advisor or what.
I had numerous poor teachers. International finance was bad. Fred Choobineh was probably the worst. People who had him earlier really seemed to like him so I don’t know if he got worse recently but I learned pretty much nothing from that class and it wasn’t easy unless you brown nosed him. I had some others who werent good but those two were the worst.
HAD to look more into this guy based on your post. Some funny Rate my professor quotes on him/his class. Sounds like he was a real peach hahaI had Stephen Bloom during my time at Iowa. This guy was the most pompous dooshcanoe I've ever encountered. Had him in a journalism class and all he talked about was himself and did nothing but made fun of students' work in the least constructive way. This is the asshat who got crucified for his article in The Atlantic that ripped apart the state of Iowa and its citizens which was riddled with factual errors and followed up by several corrections by The Atlantic. He was also disowned by his UofI colleagues and the photog who worked with him on their book project. Bloom was the classic example of an 'academic' who could never survive in the real world, but felt like Superman in his soft little academia bubble. Worst teacher I've ever had.
"You're not attending a university course, you're watching a semester-long infomercial for himself."
"Not a very good teacher. But you can learn to be a fiction writer in his journalism class."<-Gold
"Has overinflated ego and favors those who indulge him. Every example he used of "good journalism" were his OWN pieces. Expresses disdain for those who challenge him intellectually. Check out his credentials ... during my years, he was the only prof without an advanced degree, and he was FIRED from a previous reporting job."
I thought Sturges was really good in the EM help-room, actually. Maybe the fact that I was in there basically every day had something to do with it.
