Taking a stroll through my notebooks from previous semesters, I noticed drawings of 3D cubes and portraits of “Hey Arnold” progressively taking up more and more room on my loose leaf. This led me to ask myself, did I make the wrong choice by selecting a psychology major instead of art, or had class just become unbearable?
Since my drawings of Arnold made him seem like he was mentally handicapped, I regretfully think it really was the latter. So am I just becoming a lazy student who’s developing attention deficit disorder at an extremely alarming rate, or is it my current circumstances?
I was brought up to repress my shortcomings, so I blame my surroundings.
As students, we are unusually adept in deciphering professors who truly have a passion for educating today’s youth — those who take an active interest in the success of students and care about their opinions and ideas — from those who just care about collecting their paycheck at the end of the week and go home to beat their wives and children.
Some professors think of funny and clever ways to convey confusing ideas and concepts to their students — making classes enjoyable with their unique sense of humor — while others think that reading the most important information from the textbook, word-for-word, without cracking a smile, is more than sufficient.
Granted, there are professors whose attempts at humor fail more miserably than an issue of the Binghamton Review, but at least they’re trying. A professor’s attitude toward the way he or she handles class is the most important factor in how much a student can gain from the course. It’s a shame when professors care less about their profession than Rebecca Black’s manager.
I’ve also become increasingly infuriated by graduate teaching assistants who have been deciding my grades in larger classes. I’m reminded of the time I was taking a course on American television when I received my “Boy Meets World” paper back. I read the first line, that had Cory’s name circled and a comment above it reading, “I don’t know who this is.”
Not only should someone who doesn’t know who Cory Matthews is not be a TA for a course on American television, he or she also should be forced to eat a meal that has Mr. Feeny’s mustache shavings on it. TAs should not have this much influence over my grades or determine which doors I can and cannot walk through in the future.
Some teaching assistants are really easy to talk to and give constructive criticism, while others just like to completely tear a paper apart to demonstrate their superior elder knowledge and compensate for their miserable existence.
This assault would not be complete if I didn’t talk about you, my peers. There is nothing more irritating than being forced to listen to the stupid things other kids say in class. This holds especially true when a professor is about to end class when someone emphatically raises a hand and attempts to tie in his or her random encounter with Bob Saget at Petco with the course material.
It’s actually pretty interesting when someone has a provocative and novel idea to present to the class, but it rarely happens. I can’t recall how many times I’ve been forced to listen to people’s life stories without cringing and wanting to throw my pen at their heads.
This is far from an attack on Binghamton’s professors, teaching assistants and students. I’ve taken many interesting and memorable courses over my past four years here.
It’s that rare perfect storm of uninterested professors, dickhead TAs and low-IQ students that make me dread going to class more than I did my Bar Mitzvah lessons. But who knows, maybe it’s really just all me and my rapidly developing ADD. Who wants to go ride a bike?