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azuriteI'm in POLS 355 (American National, State, and Local Government) right now, and the professor, whom I'll call Mr. Seaweed-Brows, is quite obviously THE MOST disorganized teacher I can remember EVER having. First, he gave us the wrong syllabus (for a two day/week class, which we're NOT) and has yet to update it, even 3 weeks later; second, he changed his mind on what our major project is supposed to be about-- from California counties to states. Okay, not bad, but what does he do? Distribute one piece of blank paper to the person in the front of each row, then choose a random person with "good handwriting" (though, as previously mentioned, at least 7 other people have papers, too) to write down the state assignments. What ends up happening is everyone in a region of the class writes down their name and state on the paper, but there are at least 5 other papers that have no names on them. The people clear across the room have no idea what we've claimed or even who we are.
So after about 5 minutes of confusing hand-raising, shouting out, and other assorted arguments, I offered to go up to the board and write down all the claims to make sure no one was doubled up, and to find out what states were still free. Okay, so my handwriting wasn't the best, but no one else was doing it, and it was frustrating me with how pathetically disorganized this prof. was. Another student figured out what states were FREE based on the ones I was writing down. After about 15 minutes, we got all the claimed states (including New Jersey, which oddly has 2 people claiming it, despite other states being free) and the split state (California; I'm doing Northern). So everyone was satisfied and there was no more confusion on THAT end.
...We still don't have a syllabus. We need to know due-dates, project expectations... so we just had to ask a flurry of questions. Regarding this project, he had to tell us what he wanted, and he often repeated things, over and over again. Total lack of clarification. And when it came to due dates, he had no idea, and there was MORE confusion regarding the first exam and religious holidays! Uuuugh!
There's a mixed bag of opinions for him on RateMyProfessors.com, which is probably why I chanced taking this professor-- some people said he was easy, others said (like I think) he's disorganized. Some people thought that was a good thing: all you have to do is study from the book, not really show up for class unless you WANT to (which means when I have Sundial stuff, I guess I can skip this one without too much consequence). Still, just 3 weeks into the semester, I'm more prone to agreeing that the professor being disorganized is pretty bad; sure, I might still get an A out of the class because I read the textbook, but if I didn't ENJOY the time I spent in class? Pointless.
So after about 5 minutes of confusing hand-raising, shouting out, and other assorted arguments, I offered to go up to the board and write down all the claims to make sure no one was doubled up, and to find out what states were still free. Okay, so my handwriting wasn't the best, but no one else was doing it, and it was frustrating me with how pathetically disorganized this prof. was. Another student figured out what states were FREE based on the ones I was writing down. After about 15 minutes, we got all the claimed states (including New Jersey, which oddly has 2 people claiming it, despite other states being free) and the split state (California; I'm doing Northern). So everyone was satisfied and there was no more confusion on THAT end.
...We still don't have a syllabus. We need to know due-dates, project expectations... so we just had to ask a flurry of questions. Regarding this project, he had to tell us what he wanted, and he often repeated things, over and over again. Total lack of clarification. And when it came to due dates, he had no idea, and there was MORE confusion regarding the first exam and religious holidays! Uuuugh!
There's a mixed bag of opinions for him on RateMyProfessors.com, which is probably why I chanced taking this professor-- some people said he was easy, others said (like I think) he's disorganized. Some people thought that was a good thing: all you have to do is study from the book, not really show up for class unless you WANT to (which means when I have Sundial stuff, I guess I can skip this one without too much consequence). Still, just 3 weeks into the semester, I'm more prone to agreeing that the professor being disorganized is pretty bad; sure, I might still get an A out of the class because I read the textbook, but if I didn't ENJOY the time I spent in class? Pointless.
