BY GERALD BLACKSHEAR / VN STAFF WRITER
Students certainly have their complains about professors – from saying they’re too strict or not good at teaching the material.
But how about professors? Do they have complaints about students?
Texting in class, chewing gum, coming late to class – what gets under a professor’s skin?
The Varsity News asked several professors what their biggest pet peeves were with students and how they deal with them.
Professor Jason Roche has one.
“My biggest pet peeve with students (usually athletes) is when they wait until the end of the semester and see they have a bad grade, because they missed so many assignments – and then ask at the end of the semester how can they make it up,” he said. “You can make it up by doing the assignments in the first place.”
How does he handle these requests?
“I just try to emphasize how urgent it is to get your work in on time, and especially before the end of the semester,” he said.
Procrastinators bother professor Kristi Digioia.
“I just hate when students wait until an assignment is due and then say they don’t know what to do for it.”
She encourages students to speak up when the assignment is first given, especially “if they need help or if they don’t understand something.”
She added, “I’ll end up asking like three or four times if everyone understands the assignment and will still end up with a few students asking me questions the day the assignment is due.”
After a few minutes pondering the question, professor Cynthia Langham said, “I can’t really come up with anything. I’m the wrong person for this question. I don’t ever really have any problems with students. I mean you had me in class you know how I am…”
And it’s true, I did have her as a professor and she is the sweetest professor. She was always kind and she never had friction or conflict with any of the students in the class.
Professor Tom Stanton teaches in communication studies, too.
“Not much bothers me,” he said. “I am okay with students eating or drinking in class, so long as they’re not disruptive. The same goes with texting or surfing on a cellphone. It’s not ideal but it is a fact of life at this point.”
But lateness can get to him.
“My biggest pet peeve is students who come to class late repeatedly,” he said. “Everyone will occasionally be late but if you’re late frequently it feels disrespectful.”
How does he deal with it?
He said he “deducts points” based on how many times someone is late.
Professor Joe Abisaid said he has a couple pet peeves.
“Students who turn in work without stapling it, students who email to let me know they will be absent and then ask, ‘Can you let me know what I missed?’ and students who do not bother to read the comments that I make on papers/speeches even though I may have spent anywhere between 30 minutes to an hour grading it.”
Abisaid said he deals with these situations by “trying to make announcements at the beginning of the semester and hope that students remember it. And for the third one, whenever I pass back papers, I stress the importance of reviewing my comments,” he added.
