Dealing With the Prof

If you see the professor only as the one who lectures, assigns readings and then issues your grade based on exams and papers, you may be leaving money on the table. You will learn more and get better grades if you interact with the experts that you have paid many dollars to learn from.

You are wise if you do this strategically.

Why approach an instructor? Believe it or not, most of them want you to do well. Gone are the days when profs prided themselves on threatening the fall frosh class that only one-third of them would last the term! Post-secondary colleges and universities want you to succeed in their courses, in their programs.

There are as many different reasons for needing to meet with the prof (or their TA proxy) as there are reasons for needing to meet with your boss on a job. In a way, the prof is your boss for that course, even though the pay flows in the opposite direction.. 

There are also as many different types of professors as there are bosses in the work world: bosses you would die for, and bosses you wouldn’t exactly cry for if they became publicly embarrassed; professors whose courses you seek out, and those you avoid if you can.

This is so important. The psychological contract is that if you follow the job description for a student in that course, you will get the grade. The prof’s role in this contract is to provide a clear, doable job description of what is expected for what grade. Your role is to learn, to grow in understanding and skill. Your job is to do the necessary work. Your prof’s job is to provide the knowledge resources and information necessary for you to do your job.

What could possibly go wrong? Right.

Even if you are in the introductory STEM courses where there may be 500 students in a lecture, there are usually TAs, lab assistants, or seminar leaders. Find out soon who the go-to people are before you need to go to them.

I’m going to spend the next several blogs looking at how to communicate effectively with professors or instructors. I’ll be speaking from my experience as a university instructor as well as from the many, many experiences of the students I coach. It’s not all pretty.

Check back next week for an overview of why and when you should set up for positive communication with professors who will, after all, be your academic boss for at least one course, one semester.

In the meantime, if you have situations involving relations with instructors in your academic life, whether they are rewarding or frustrating, I’d welcome hearing about them in confidence. [email protected]