# Arrogant professors



## s12345 (Jul 11, 2011)

My university just posted a video on how to not write an e-mail to a professor.

The man commenting the e-mail in the video is rather irritating:





He is incredibly unhelpful and arrogant. If I were a professor, I would give my students anything they would ask for and support them in their lives no matter what.

Many professors seem to be missing the point that they are there to help people learn, not to slow them down or act condescending upon them.

I think universities need better and more thoughtful and caring professors than obnoxious, arrogant types like the one in the video.


----------



## Mikichi (Sep 30, 2014)

Well, first of all if we check out the description of that video we can see that it is a fake e-mail to illustrate the thought processes of a professor, who has to deal with such e-mails.

I'm not sure if you interacted with the commentator of this video in real life at any point, but I am fairly certain that the video is not representative of his general behaviour.

It is a piece to encourage people to write proper e-mail, while also showing the frustration of having to deal with people that seem to be incapable to write a coherent sentence while being enrolled in college.

While his style obviously leaves a lot of room for critique, I have to say that people that write e-mails such as the example do exist in actual colleges and they would frustrate me as well. When trying to get help from a professer politeness, coherence and general spelling should be a given.

My question is: How should that professor deal with actual e-mails such as this?


----------



## s12345 (Jul 11, 2011)

He should just provide the help to the student, no matter how the student writes. This is also a nice Catholic trait: to give without wanting something back. To be a good Samaritan.

If you have watched the movie Patch Adams, you could perhaps see what I mean by being a good professor. Humanity has turned itself far too arrogant. "Oh, step aside, right this way, oh doctor, god of all", "Oh, you are a deity". Society needs to let go of that uptight and arrogant class-division behavior. We are all one and the same human flesh and blood! The true task of a doctor, a teacher, or even better: a human being is to help others. Enough with manners, enough with 'structure'; just do what's essential. Help the student! Stop putting structure and protocol in front of communication. 

I have seen professors and deans communicate and they all talk to each other in an informal way. They even write informally. Believe me, I have worked with many students and professors over the years and formality has never been appreciated on my part. I have had professors write to me in very rude manners such as using my first name or even not addressing my name at all, while sending a personal e-mail to me. There were also cases where they wrote an e-mail in all small letters.

I understand students should employ proper prose, but I assume no one at my university writes like this. The sad truth is that we had a few cases like these in the freshman year of English, where people addressed the professor by his first name.

Also, be very aware that politeness is culture-dependent. You must know that in Scandinavia, students and professors treat each other as equals and there is no problem at all between them. Our philosophy professor told us he had to get quite used to their way of communicating when he was over there teaching in a foreign program for a few weeks: the students would literally start an e-mail with "Yo". So, in Scandinavia there would be no problem writing an e-mail that contains mannerisms such as "'sup," and "thanks dawg"; I am not kidding you.

I think you and I are a minority in society. I have worked with enough people to know that no one cares for rules, manners or structure. In fact, people call me uptight for using them. I don't care though, I maintain my integrity and my structure. For the rest, as far as I am concerned, society is one big pot of corruption and hypocrisy. The rules are everywhere and everyone breaks them.


----------



## Just Lurking (Feb 8, 2007)

Not listening to it - only read the would-be email.

Teachers probably deal with that kind of stuff all the time. Who can blame them for developing a caustic attitude towards it over time?



s12345 said:


> Stop putting structure and protocol in front of communication.


The wording of the message isn't the only thing wrong here.

If you're missing classes and want to find out what's going on, then you should be talking to other *students* - _not_ the teacher. And if you _do_ need to contact the teacher, then the time to do it is _before_ the actual class - not after you're several classes behind.

A student's personal problems and baggage are *not* a teacher's problem. Think about how many students the average post-secondary teacher has in any given semester. They don't have time to coddle the individual, nor should they be expected to.

Any student who does this and thinks it's anywhere remotely acceptable shouldn't even *be *in post-secondary because they're not going to amount to anything _anyway _- besides maybe being a single parent of six, working the night shift at McDonald's for the rest of their life.


----------



## s12345 (Jul 11, 2011)

Just Lurking said:


> Not listening to it - only read the would-be email.
> 
> Teachers probably deal with that kind of stuff all the time. Who can blame them for developing a caustic attitude towards it over time?
> 
> ...


Hey listen up, first of all: I managed to make it through three years of my Bachelor curriculum without asking anyone a single thing. I don't need people. No one needs co-students because they are useless! I have tried asking my fellow students questions back in my time but every time they would prove unhelpful, stupid and useless to me. So much for co-students! I managed to make it through my curriculum without the help of anyone, like a real man.

How would professors deal with that all the time? Are you assuming campuses are filled with illiterate goons? I wouldn't think so. Most of us are literate. If we weren't, then we wouldn't have been accepted into higher education in the first place. I think such e-mails are just a rarity - that's all.

Aside from all that, the protocol I learned in my freshman year was the following:



> To email or not to email
> Think twice before sending an email
> At the start or at the end of
> class you can always address
> ...





> A student's personal problems and baggage are not a teacher's problem.


You are quite wrong about this. We have a dedicated office for dealing with students' problems. Let me tell you a guy who was going for Bachelor in Teaching failed his internship because he was a general dickhead who had no empathy for students. You need to learn that being a professor and a tutor is to support your students; financially, emotionally, everything. We have a policy like that at our university. I don't know where you go to but that is the policy we employ; for the students, by the students.



> besides maybe being a single parent of six, working the night shift at McDonald's for the rest of their life.


That mentality is a guarantee you will never graduate. It is empty and thoughtless. A mature student has empathy and professionalism and he certainly has no condescending behavior towards other people. I think you should spend some years working with other people and find out what it's like to be a real human professional; to work with others and to criticize no one. Your comment made me feel uncomfortable and it is very improper of you to think like that. I am assuming you haven't even reached your third year of college yet or you wouldn't be showing this immature mentality.


----------



## Just Lurking (Feb 8, 2007)

s12345 said:


> I managed to make it through three years of my Bachelor curriculum without asking anyone a single thing. I don't need people. No one needs co-students because they are useless! I have tried asking my fellow students questions back in my time but every time they would prove unhelpful, stupid and useless to me. So much for co-students! I managed to make it through my curriculum without the help of anyone, like a real man.


That's good for you, but what does this have to do with students who *do* run into problems requiring other people's input?



s12345 said:


> How would professors deal with that all the time? Are you assuming campuses are filled with illiterate goons? I wouldn't think so. Most of us are literate. If we weren't, then we wouldn't have been accepted into higher education in the first place. I think such e-mails are just a rarity - that's all.


You mean, you '_assume_' such emails are a rarity?



s12345 said:


> You are quite wrong about this. We have a dedicated office for dealing with students' problems.


Who staffs the office and who is their direct contact?



s12345 said:


> Let me tell you a guy who was going for Bachelor in Teaching failed his internship because he was a general dickhead who had no empathy for students. You need to learn that being a professor and a tutor is to support your students; financially, emotionally, everything. We have a policy like that at our university. I don't know where you go to but that is the policy we employ; for the students, by the students.


There is a difference between having empathy for students and coddling an idiot who everyone knows to be a lost cause.

It should be expected that teachers will pick their battles.



s12345 said:


> That mentality is a guarantee you will never graduate. It is empty and thoughtless. A mature student has empathy and professionalism and he certainly has no condescending behavior towards other people. I think you should spend some years working with other people and find out what it's like to be a real human professional; to work with others and to criticize no one.


Maybe you've spent too much time with your head buried in books and not enough time in the real world. Take your head out of the clouds, and get in tune with how the world [and the people in it] really work.



s12345 said:


> Your comment made me feel uncomfortable and it is very improper of you to think like that.


Colour me "improper" then :lol



s12345 said:


> I am assuming you haven't even reached your third year of college yet or you wouldn't be showing this immature mentality.


What a curiously presumptuous comment coming from someone who just finished ranting about arrogance in others.


----------



## Mikichi (Sep 30, 2014)

s12345 said:


> Hey listen up, first of all: I managed to make it through three years of my Bachelor curriculum without asking anyone a single thing. I don't need people. No one needs co-students because they are useless!


 So you are saying that there is no need to ask for help. In that sense, if you were in the position to ask for help you should better do it in a way that is socially acceptable in your culture.



s12345 said:


> I managed to make it through my curriculum without the help of anyone, like a real man.


 Like a "real man"? And you talk about immaturity? Asking for help is not a sign for weakness, but it has an obligation. That obligation is to make it easy for the person that is supposed to help you.
If you are incapable of doing just that and can't adhere to a proper way of communicating with a superior than why should you get help?



s12345 said:


> How would professors deal with that all the time? [...] I think such e-mails are just a rarity - that's all.


 And you are assuming that it is a rarity. I have seen the people I went to high-school with and that went to pursue higher education. Also the point is not the frequency, it simply is time wasted on someone that didn't take the time to even spell words out in a formal e-mail.



s12345 said:


> A mature student has empathy and professionalism and he certainly has no condescending behaviour towards other people. I think you should spend some years working with other people and find out what it's like to be a real human professional;


 Professionalism. You mean like actually using spelling and grammar in an e-mail? Ah, the good old word "real". The fact is many professors are doing their jobs for decades. I'm fairly certain that they can judge very well if a person has a chance in their field. And if said person doesn't even take the 10minutes to write a proper e-mail, how do you think they manage years of studying and writing essays, mathematical proofs, etc.



s12345 said:


> Your comment made me feel uncomfortable and it is *very improper of you to think like that.*


 Invalidating someone else's opinion, because it doesn't conform with yours. How nice of you.

My university has auditoriums with an median size of 250 and a maximum of 1.200 in one auditorium.
Classes seem to be full. Professors have very little time per individual student, and they surely won't spend it on the ones that are incapable of adhering to basic concepts of formal communication.

You seem to be in a mindset that focusses on some higher values, rather than pure practicality, which is fine, but practicality is key keeping things working properly. Making any comparisons with Scandinavia implies similar starting condition, that do simply not exist in almost all of the countries in the world.


----------



## s12345 (Jul 11, 2011)

> Professionalism. You mean like actually using spelling and grammar in an e-mail?


You never worked in an office before have you? I have. I've been a PC systems administrator, but that's not the point. The point is in real office life, colleagues don't e-mail all formally to each other, not even to bosses! If you would have worked in an office, you would know this; you would know how it goes. I've seen many, many grammatical and spelling mistakes in colleagues' e-mails. Does anyone care? No!



> I'm fairly certain that they can judge very well if a person has a chance in their field.


No, they can't. The entire education system is messed up.



> And if said person doesn't even take the 10minutes to write a proper e-mail


 10 minutes? An e-mail nowadays has to be written in about 1 minute. Haven't you been keeping up with facts? I'm doing an office course at uni now for fun and the rule is: 200 error-free characters per minute. Besides, in a professional environment you would get fired (and I've seen it happen in my previous job) if you were to be e-mailing to your colleagues all the time. This is a sign of asocial behavior and firms want a guy who is social as well as technically skilled.

From what I can see from the replies here, you people are still very green behind your ears. I'm ten years older than you and I don't need your inexperience to tell me how the world works.



> writing essays, mathematical proofs, etc.


Most let their essays be written by various people altogether and the professor never knows (or rarely finds out) it wasn't written by the person whose name is on the paper. Essays are usually group work and if they aren't, people usually find out a way to cheat out of them. Mathematical proofs? Same thing. People collaborate and cheat their ways around it. I suggest you go and get some campus experience.. you need it.

Anyway, I know better. Thus ends the beautiful story.


----------



## s12345 (Jul 11, 2011)

Notice: this thread is now age 30+ only. Thank you.


----------



## Mikichi (Sep 30, 2014)

s12345 said:


> The point is in real office life, colleagues don't e-mail all formally to each other, not even to bosses! If you would have worked in an office, you would know this; you would know how it goes.


That depends on where you live, try writing an e-mail to your boss like this in South Korea, Japan or Germany and see where that leads you.



s12345 said:


> No, they can't. The entire education system is messed up.


That is your opinion. Also, which education system do you mean? There are education systems that are very very formal and require politeness that are considered to be very good.(Or so I have been told, _but maybe I don't know it, because I'm obviously too young and my education was ****_.) Take for example Japan.



s12345 said:


> 10 minutes? An e-mail nowadays *has to be written in about 1 minute*. Haven't you been keeping up with facts?


Unless it is an e-mail that actually contains anything that you needed to think about, as for example: What do I want from my professor. What information do I need to adequately pick up the class even though I missed the first 4. etc.

Also this is likely someone that wrote this e-mail due to specific circumstances and if he missed 4 classes and doesn't have the book yet, maybe he would want to make a positive impression. Also proofreading may be something that takes a minute and maybe corrections occur afterwards.



s12345 said:


> Besides, in a professional environment you would get fired (and I've seen it happen in my previous job) if you were to be e-mailing to your colleagues all the time.


Because somehow writing one e-mail to a professor due to an unforseen circumstance constitutes constant use of e-mailing? And how do you make this about co-workers. A professor is not your equal as a student.



s12345 said:


> I don't need your inexperience to tell me how the world works.


I don't need people that dismiss someone elses opinion, because they don't like it. Also they world does not work like this in many cultures. If you were to write an e-mail like this to you boss here, chances are he will be quite confused and offended where I live. People here take politeness as a given. Politeness in e-mails mean to make it as little effort as possible to the person receiving to answer it.

If they have to read atrocious spelling, incoherence and lack of formal style, it is not seens as ok. Unless you are actually friends with said person.



s12345 said:


> Most let their essays be written by various people altogether and the professor never knows (or rarely finds out) it wasn't written by the person whose name is on the paper.


And that somehow constitutes that that is acceptable behaviour to you? Also I sincerely doubt that people going to decent schools cheat that frequently. I would put the figure at under 10% where I live.



s12345 said:


> Notice: this thread is now age 30+ only. Thank you.


You posted under "Students" and only want the replies of a tiny fraction of students? Fair enough. I guess that will be my last post here.


----------



## russianruby (Jan 29, 2013)

Professors are full of **** anyways


----------



## Kind Of (Jun 11, 2014)

Why is it rude when someone makes fun of a poorly written e-mail or writes a poorly-written e-mail from the position of a professor, but when the student does it there's no foul and they should be shown understanding and kindness?


----------



## frossa621 (Oct 6, 2014)

This has been probably said to death by now, but I imagine teachers have to go through this kind of stuff daily.


----------



## Aribeth (Jan 14, 2012)

No matter what kind of person he is, a teacher is always your enemy. Don't forget that.


----------



## Zack (Apr 20, 2013)

Sounds reasonable to me.


----------



## Zack (Apr 20, 2013)

OP seems to have issues with authority.


----------



## s12345 (Jul 11, 2011)

Aribeth said:


> No matter what kind of person he is, a teacher is always your enemy. Don't forget that.


That is true.


----------



## s12345 (Jul 11, 2011)

Zack said:


> OP seems to have issues with authority.


You're damn right I do. If you don't, then I suggest you review your status of being a manipulated sheep.


----------



## Zack (Apr 20, 2013)

You are getting angry.


----------



## Imbored21 (Jun 18, 2012)

I think the video was suppose to be funny. That's why he sounds like a douche.


----------

