Opinion High-paid babysitters

Do profs teach us anything?

iagain. The fed-up women are back H with more to be ‘‘fed-up’’ with. This time, we’d like to ask the student body a question. Do you agree that we, the students, are not getting our money’s worth? Just why DO we pay the professors and are they really teaching us anything? Sure, there are some very good professors, but of course, there are some who aren’t so gcod.

Just what do WE as students want from our professors? That is the question. As we reflect on our past experiences in school, there is always that one teacher whom we admire. Based on this, we say that our professors are to be our mentors. We look up to them, not only because we’re sitting and they are standing, but because they offer direction for our future. It is our opinion that a professor is to let a student express his or her opinion without making them feel stupid. The professor is not to let the student feel publicly humiliated for any reason whatsoever. —

Students pay approximately $400 a course. This includes the cost of the course and the useless textbooks, either one ridiculously large hardcover book or numerous paperbacks. Why don’t we use these books in reference to the course instead ofas decoration? If we do use them, why doesn’t the professor ever tell us where we are in them? In most cases, they are so busy trying to illustrate their point with acute little story that the lecture is off-topic. Both the students and the professor forget what the story was meant to illustrate.

And then, of course there is the rare case of actually using the textbooks; however, when the textbook is used, the lecture is taken word- for-word from the textbook. This causes the student to wonder why he or she shouldn’t just simply read the text and not bother to attend class.

Professors, generally, are there to give interesting opinions on seemingly interesting topics of their choosing. Should we really pay large sums of money to be ‘‘educated’’ by so called intellectuals who think they know more about the subject than the text? Is it our fault that we have to be inexperienced students in a world which requires ‘‘expert’’ knowledge and opinions?

THE FED-UP WOMEN

October 14, 1993/X-Press/11