What Lecturers Really Do That Should Get Them Suspended (Disclaimer: Joke)
For all the times they refused to provide a webcast.
When universities claim to be world-class institutes of “higher learning” and their extreme entry criteria make it impossible for two-thirds of each Singaporean cohort to enter, one would expect that the people getting paid to teach are the best of the best. But every now and then, we find ourselves sighing over things that some lecturers do and thinking, “How are they getting paid for this?”
In light of recent events, we propose Suspension! when our “higher learning” is hindered by such instances. If it takes so damn much for us to get into university (and not to mention do well), then we request that the service of education provided in class must be of a certain standard too. Should such a standard not be met, punishment must be meted out. Here are a list of things lecturers do that should get them suspended (disclaimer: obviously just a joke):
When they go over the time limit.
And no, the alarm doesn’t help
It’s 3.43pm at the UTown Auditorium 1. The alarm went off 13 minutes ago and but all the lecturer did was talk louder over it. You check the slides and see that you’re at slide 25 of 43. Your next lecture is at Science at 4pm. What do you do? Go. And it’s not just a one-off thing, is it? This happens every Tuesday and asking yourself “Which lecture is less worthy?” becomes a weekly thing.
Some lecturers who are pure evil also deliberately ensure that their slides contain no notes, just images and short captions that make no sense if you don’t attend the lecture. When you get two of these lectures back to back, you’d better have an S/U ready.
Telling their life story.
What’s worse than ending a lecture late? Ending a lecture late because they decided that spending 10 minutes discussing the recent happenings in Yishun was a good idea. Or telling us a story about their life from years ago. To top it all off, they finish their stories with "but... I digress". Yeah, no kidding dude.
There’s a fine line between an entertaining story and a therapy session
Assigning 50-page readings.
Seriously, we have 5 modules, who has the time to read a 50-page reading written in lingo that only the author understands? There must be an easier way to express ideas.
The only way to get through 50 pages of hell
“Who’s the author anyway?” you wonder as you look for his name. Upon closer inspection, you suddenly realise that your lecturer assigned the class his own work as a compulsory reading. Good luck trying to critique their paper on the mid-term.
This shameless self-selling culminates in the publishing of a compulsory textbook for their module, forcing students to buy their own book.
Well played, professor… Well played...
Assigning 50-page readings and messing up the orientation.
Having to pay for printing in uni is made worse when you have to spend 10 minutes standing at the CLB printer computer rotating the pages of the reading on PDF and checking page numbers. Well, at least you noticed the orientation was messed up and successfully saved yourself 3 hours worth of flipping and rotating every consecutive page while doing the reading:
Didn’t realise we were doing origami
When they assign a 40% group project.
Being blatantly biased towards guys/girls.
Business students, with their 30% class participation weightage would agree especially. All the best if you’re a guy sitting between two pretty girls in a biased lecturer’s class. Or if you’re a girl and your lecturer is really into buff dudes in basic A&F tees. Don’t even bother putting your hand up with the rest of the class when a question is asked; they’ll never see it.
You're asking me how my day was? Participation marks to you!
Reading off the slides.
Oh, the irony - our group presentations feel like the freakin’ Hunger Games while you’re getting paid to read off of your slides? Plus, no offence, but your slides are unaesthetic af. We propose that the Centre for Ready-Graduates should hold some presentation workshops for these lecturers instead.
You know you’re screwed when your communications lecturer’s slides look like this
Bad jokes.
… or worse, dad jokes. We’re just kidding, we appreciate that you made the effort. The quality of the jokes mirror that of the education we’re receiving anyway. Okay, that went a little too dark, we apologise.
When the lecturer makes a bad joke but you need that 20% class participation
Not putting in effort into replies.
We’re all adults, and besides, is getting paid as a professional not good enough a reason to reply to emails and questions in a professional manner?
That was helpful, thanks for the insight!
And no, “We’re lecturers, we don’t have time for this” doesn’t cut it. That sounds like something a whiny kid would say.
Emailing you that the lecture is cancelled while you’re on the way to school.
Imagine the pain that an EASTie (east side best side!) goes through when they’re already on the Circle Line at Bishan and they receive an email from Outlook telling them that their only lecture of the day has been cancelled.
And the best part is that these emails usually look like this:
Might as well have added a ‘k thx bye’ at the end
When we miss a tutorial we have to come up with an entire legit backstory on why we can’t/didn’t make the lesson, but when you cancel a lecture for a thousand students and all you say is “apologies” without proper capitalisation?
I’m not angry, professor... I’m just… disappointed.
And lastly, sex for grades.
We just had to.
Anything you think we missed out on? Be sure to let us know!
