10 Things I Wish College Professors Would Stop Doing (and what to do instead)

Ranked in order of how annoyed I am by each one

by Anna Williams

I’ve been in college for a long time…dual enrollment my senior year of high school, four years of undergraduate, and then two years of graduate school. I’ve taken a lot of classes and had a lot of professors, and let me tell you, the professor makes or breaks the class. For the duration of their course, you are subject to the whims and fancies of a professor if you want to get a good grade. The majority of the time, I had great professors. A lot of times I had good professors who did annoying things. And a few times, they were just bad and all around unhelpful.

For the past two years, I’ve been a Graduate Teaching Assistant, and I learned a lot of valuable lessons about teaching from my mentors. I also learned what not to do as a teacher as I watched students struggle and become more and more frustrated with their professors over things that shouldn’t be issues. So I’m here today to share with you my top ten list of things professors should stop doing ranked by how much each thing annoys me. And don’t worry, I’ll also tell you what to do instead. Let’s go!

10. Not utilizing the online learning tools (Canvas, Moodle, Blackboard, etc)…