Today begins my final semester of graduate school. It started in a familiar room, but with an unfamiliar tone. Although it is surely too early to judge, I have a feeling that this classroom will be something like Hogwarts under Dolores Umbridge. The professor, while trying to appear generous (by offering that we call her by her first name and bring food when needed into the lunch-hour class), was so uptight that she went through the syllabus all hour without really showing any sign of relating to the students. She repeatedly mentioned how "very unusual" it was to have two students by the same first name; she was even more troubled when the students didn't offer up suggestions as to "what to do about this" -- as though one student should be required to be called by another name simply because there was another girl by the same name in the class! Seriously, it is as though she has never been in a classroom before! Also Umbridge-like, she spoke to us like small children -- "if I see you using electronics at inappropriate times I will ask you, in front of everyone, to put it away." Jeez. This is grad school. Most of us are 25 - 35 years old and are paying an arm and a leg to sit in these classrooms and hopefully learn from professors with great minds or at least great experience that they can share. I will conclude by stating that I wouldn't have even spent the time to rant on this blog if the professor had sent out the pdfs of our readings "right after class" as she had promised.
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