"I still think you should go to the Dean of Students, this is not the experience you're paying money for," my mother tells me this morning.
At the community college, I don't think there's a Dean of Student Affairs, but the equivalent might be just going to his Division Chair and complaining. I'm hesitant to do so because my chemistry professor hasn't done anything overtly sexist or racist, and he hasn't aggressively shamed anyone in class, at least not in front of the other students (although how he treats his own kids, who are taking the course, is a borderline case). Yes, he's grumpy, and yes, he gets irritated when you ask questions (so, guess what? I've stopped asking questions), and yes, he makes it obvious that the last thing he wanted to do this summer was teach basic, high school-level chemistry for either high school students (of which there's a few) or slacker community college students of varying ages (there are two other classmates who are roughly my age).
The second day of class he got me aside in a private room, and told me what a shitty job I did on my lab from the previous day. He accused me of "running out" on my lab partner, and doing shitty math on my experiment, and then not showing any work (or calculations for this shitty math). "If you have a partner, you can't just run out on them," he told me. Okay, so, I figured my lab partner was smart enough to do the problems in the conclusion. Was that an error on my part? I supposed so. Instead, he's allowed me to just do the experiments by myself.
During lecture once, I asked him how you can calculate atomic radius when we don't know the location of the electrons at any given moment, we only know probability density. He told me that to answer that question was beyond the scope of the class, and it would only further confuse me. The chemistry professor doesn't exactly foster a love for chemistry when he assumes that everyone is too stupid to really investigate some of the nuances of the subject. He treats other students the same, it isn't personal, it's not about me as an individual.
The good news is: all of this material is review. I took chemistry in high school, and then I know I've attempted it at least once at the University (when I was a freshman, my second quarter, I took chemistry, and was in the class until the last few weeks of the term, I was maintaining a C, but was told by the Advisor to drop anyway because of my mental state at the time). So, I don't really need the chemistry professor to hold my hand, which is good news, because most of the time, I don't understand him in lecture since he goes through the material so quickly, and his analogies don't make any sense to me (who knows if they make since to anyone else). Last class period, I asked him if he would review the even problems in the book with me on Monday, as a way to prepare for the midterm, which is on Tuesday. He told me he didn't have the answers, and then walked off. Like, fuck you, study on your own.
I've tried several times to make small talk with him, and his responses vary from being irritated (again) to merely amusing me with an answer. The vast majority of professors I've ever had liked me, and I, in turn, liked them. All of the professors in the English Division at the community college have been wonderful, from the extraordinary English instructor to my charming poetry professor to the kind and considering Engl 201B professor.
The chemistry professor though said on the first day of the class that this semester was as difficult for him as it was for us. That sometimes he didn't want to stand up there and lecture for hours (okay, that's probably true for most professors at some point in their career). He doesn't even pretend that he has a love of teaching. It's more like, I can't believe I get paid to teach this dull shit.
With the competition being so high for any professor position (including even part time), especially tenure-track, there's really no reason to have a shitty instructor for your chemistry class. There are too many people, more qualified and better suited for the job. They're out there, they have student debt, and they just want to teach because they have an affinity for it. Better they get the job than some bitter asshole.
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