A Formal Complaint: Where Did Interest in Professors Go?

So I realize I could be particularly sensitive to this issue, seeing as I am the product of academia, but I've noticed a trend among many college students: they'll talk about what fantastic classes they've taken/are going to take, but cannot remember the name of the professor. In my creative writing class, a student mentioned having taken that class before, but failed to remember if her professor was male or female. In a course as subjective as creative writing, and at a time when need for letters of recommendation (*cough cough*) is fast approaching, it is essential that you work with a compatible professor.

I've certainly been guilty of this in the past. My parents, if they knew of a highly regarded professor, would encourage me to take a class with him or her, only for me to respond with, "you don't know my life or my schedule!" which resulted in too many English classes entirely devoted to vampires and indie video games.

I understand that it's unrealistic to only seek out the highest quality professors throughout your college career, but this lackadaisical approach to college professors doesn't only hurt the people who spent weeks slaving over a hot syllabus for you, but it hurts you as well. Yes, your class may be required, or the course topic may interest you so much you think that the professor is irrelevant, but what we fail to see is that these professors tweak their classes to match their areas of expertise, their interest.

To illustrate, let's look at an example from my spring semester English course. This course was advertised as Engl 490: Women Writers. I was led to believe I would be reading some Virginia Wolf, some Brontes, some Austen--however, my professor's area of expertise was in the study of the young girl. As such, this class quickly transformed into an experimental women's studies class in which we read about *warning, gross* anal fissures and bands called "Pussy Riot." Which would have been fine, had I signed up for a women's studies class.


Ironically, I've learned the importance of researching my professors just in time to graduate. But it's so much more refreshing to take my major courses with a yoga-loving, memoir-writing professor than to suffer through what can only be described as Dracula fan-fiction.

I've taken course where I felt like my professor didn't care to get to know our names or stories, and I can confirm that its a pretty shitty feeling. However, it's more justifiable, seeing as, in the course of a semester, an average professor has 75+ students, and the student has 7 professors at most. Professors are *gasp* human, and are therefore not immune to feeling un-appreciated or undervalued. And when it comes time to write your letters of recommendation, they will certainly remember that feeling.

I know this is nothing profound, but it was just on my mind. For the most part, your professors work hard. They're basically the celebrities of the world of academia. Treat them as such.*

*I may be exaggerating a leeeeetle bit here, but seriously. I've met some professors who might as well be rockstars. They're that cool.

Namaste.