Unfiltered Story #313357

I’m a university student, majoring in mathematics. I’m taking a math theory class which required for the major, which means any grade below a “C” is failing.

The first day, the instructor writes his name on the board. It’s a name that could be pronounced in one of several ways, depending on whether the consonants are hard or soft. The instructor announces, “My name is pronounced [his name]. If you mispronounce my name you will lose one letter grade.” He then lists several other minor things for which he will penalize a full letter grade.

The first test we get is the mid-term exam, which is given after the last date to drop a class without penalty. It’s full of questions requiring reciting theorems word-for-word, with even minor errors marked as wrong. The instructor does not “curve” the score, so anything below 70% is failing. The class average score on this exam is 46%.

The instructor berates us at length for scoring so poorly, as if it’s our fault we don’t understand the material he’s presented. Eventually he says he’s going to “have to” spend the next week giving “remedial instruction”, followed by a second mid-term exam. The class average score after the second mid-term exam is 65%. Although about half the class is still failing, he considers this acceptable and moves on to new material.

Seeing this as a waste of effort, I stopped attending and took the “F” grade. Since this class is required for my major, I retake it the next semester with a different instructor. This second instructor was not only able to get all his students to understand the material, we were able to cover more material in greater depth.

I never took another class from the first instructor, and warned all my friends to avoid him if at all possible.