Toughest Professor/Instructor you had in college
- Thread starter psuro
- Start date
Yep, Gregory was a tuff SOB, took no prisoners. I hated Chemistry and my grade reflected my attitude.
If she also has soft curly brown hair then she just might be my Brown Eyed Girl from the Hub.
She was in some sorority and dated some guy from theta chi. Her name was Wendy.
*sigh*. I remember her vividly.
Prob and stats prof was a defector from North Korea she ruled her classroom with an iron fist..it would be her or my applied calculus professor who spent the first 5 weeks facing the blackboard flying through material while we al feverishly attempted to take adequate notes...it was a blood bath
In 1968 I took a course in Abstract Algebra. I forget the teacher's name but he had a foreign accent and was hard to understand. Horrible teacher. Couldn't explain anything. There were about 25 in the class. The exams were impossible and everyone got low grades. I had the third highest test average in the class and turned in all the homework. I figured he would grade on a curve and I would at least get a B. The grades were posted. One C. I got a D along with 2 others. Everyone else in the class failed.
Sounds like my differential equations prof. Heavily accented and basically read the text as his teaching style. One of my study techniques was to do extra problems that were not assigned homework. Once at an exam review class, I asked him to do a problem that I had done but not assigned. He refused since it was not assigned. I could not believe it and figured he could not do the problem.
One of my best friends did that at his alma mater. Ended up as a varsity fencer and later assistant coach. Respected but did not like Kaidanov.
Yep, she was in a sorority, I think it's the one directly across from college avenue. I'm starting to think we are, incredibly, talking about the same girl.
Paul S Greenlaw professor of management science in what is now the Smeal School. He was tough because watching paint dry was exponentially more interesting than listening to his ultra boring lectures. Staying awake in class after the first 5 minutes was extremely challenging.
I have been thinking about her the whole day. I think her last name was Keller or Keeler. I think she was from Montgomery County.
Yes, PSU main campus. I believe a Grad Asst. 1975-76 I believe, although I can't remember what year and quarter (we were on quarters then, not semesters) I took it.....
No idea. Can't remember my golf score from 2 weeks ago....
But one of the few Prof's I do remember was Andy Pytel for EMECH 11. One of the best I had while at PSU. First rule of Statics: You can't push on a string.
As the first rule of Physics: Everything has to be somewhere....
You are doing good. I have trouble remember what I want to do within a few minutes.
Same at F&M, Intro to Soc. Sweeceye=suicide at 800 am 3x a week no less! Brutal!!!
She sometimes wore that open shoulder sweatshirt from flashdance outfit, and Jesus Christ was she hot. Nelson on that old tv had no chance against that girl.
Did anyone have a "Dr. Wu" for Chem 101? He always promised to bring the "taste"with him to class for special students. The problem was, he was just a shadow of the man that we once knew.
Yep. I often wonder what happened to her. I ran into her briefly in 1992. She Still looked Good then
There was a labor law class I took in 1995...small geeky dude mustache glasses pocket protector...was a Harvard undergrad and Yale law degree.. grade was based on only 3 tests all open book and blue book exams...highest score was a 65 had to,bell curve the whole class.
I ask because My father was a professor in mechanical engineering and he taught emech. It may have been one of his grad asst. his specialty is fatigue failure and stress on metals. He taught from 1965- until roughly 2005. He still does work for asme sometimes.
I had to split mine into two categories.
Toughest because they were damn good professors:
Art Anderson, Architecture: I was both mentally exhausted and excited after every lecture. For example, he spent two entire lectures on handrails and to this day I check out every damn handrail I encounter, seeing how it fits the hand, etc.
Robin Becker, English: Had her for two creative writing classes and her notes were surgical but always on point.
Thomas Boothby, AE: Very thorough, all business, and covered a lot of ground every lecture. Always had to share notes even when you didn’t miss a single class. Had him for two courses. He held himself to the same standards. If he took too long to grade an assignment, he would give bonus points as a way to dock his own performance.
Toughest because they were miserable human beings:
Amin Aminsor, AE concrete structures: First day of class he announces that he doesn’t like teaching Architecture majors because we’re stupid and he was assigned the class while he was on leave the previous semester. Tue & Thur 8-10:15am, no breaks. He didn’t just include attendance as part of the grade, he docked you if you were late or had to go to the bathroom. Only AE prof I ever had that didn’t give partial credit for at least having the proper steps. You either got full credit or nothing, but he did grade on a curve which made no sense given his stance on partial credit. While I forget the exact numbers, the grades for his final fell along the lines of the high score was 30%, the mean was 20% and I was happy to get a 25%
Howard Lawrence, Architecture: I’ll limit myself to one example. During Friday’s design studio, he announces that he rented a bus and we’re going to NYC the very next day for a site analysis of our next design project. It was a football Saturday and I was a prep-cook at Mario & Luigi’s which meant a minimum 12hr work day. There was no way I could get off work on such short notice. After I explained this to him he said you’re not here to study cooking. When I told him that I needed the job to pay for school, he simply said that he would have to fail me for that assignment.
Bottom line, I didn’t go, but the following Monday I approached him and asked if I could make it up. That coming Saturday was an away game and I had asked my boss and got permission to take the weekend off. I told him I would the bus to NYC and complete the assignment. He finally acquiesced. So that Friday, I signed out a camera and bought a ticket for the last bus to NYC. I slept in the Port Authority Terminal, something I will never do again, and went and did my site analysis on Sat. Paid an obscene amount of money for 2hr film development in the city and hopped the bus back to State College. Spent all of Sunday completing the project and hung it on his office door Sunday night. Lawrence gave it back to me during studio on Monday with a D for the grade and not a single note. When I asked him what was wrong he simply said it was late.
Toughest because they were damn good professors:
Art Anderson, Architecture: I was both mentally exhausted and excited after every lecture. For example, he spent two entire lectures on handrails and to this day I check out every damn handrail I encounter, seeing how it fits the hand, etc.
Robin Becker, English: Had her for two creative writing classes and her notes were surgical but always on point.
Thomas Boothby, AE: Very thorough, all business, and covered a lot of ground every lecture. Always had to share notes even when you didn’t miss a single class. Had him for two courses. He held himself to the same standards. If he took too long to grade an assignment, he would give bonus points as a way to dock his own performance.
Toughest because they were miserable human beings:
Amin Aminsor, AE concrete structures: First day of class he announces that he doesn’t like teaching Architecture majors because we’re stupid and he was assigned the class while he was on leave the previous semester. Tue & Thur 8-10:15am, no breaks. He didn’t just include attendance as part of the grade, he docked you if you were late or had to go to the bathroom. Only AE prof I ever had that didn’t give partial credit for at least having the proper steps. You either got full credit or nothing, but he did grade on a curve which made no sense given his stance on partial credit. While I forget the exact numbers, the grades for his final fell along the lines of the high score was 30%, the mean was 20% and I was happy to get a 25%
Howard Lawrence, Architecture: I’ll limit myself to one example. During Friday’s design studio, he announces that he rented a bus and we’re going to NYC the very next day for a site analysis of our next design project. It was a football Saturday and I was a prep-cook at Mario & Luigi’s which meant a minimum 12hr work day. There was no way I could get off work on such short notice. After I explained this to him he said you’re not here to study cooking. When I told him that I needed the job to pay for school, he simply said that he would have to fail me for that assignment.
Bottom line, I didn’t go, but the following Monday I approached him and asked if I could make it up. That coming Saturday was an away game and I had asked my boss and got permission to take the weekend off. I told him I would the bus to NYC and complete the assignment. He finally acquiesced. So that Friday, I signed out a camera and bought a ticket for the last bus to NYC. I slept in the Port Authority Terminal, something I will never do again, and went and did my site analysis on Sat. Paid an obscene amount of money for 2hr film development in the city and hopped the bus back to State College. Spent all of Sunday completing the project and hung it on his office door Sunday night. Lawrence gave it back to me during studio on Monday with a D for the grade and not a single note. When I asked him what was wrong he simply said it was late.
That reminded me of a Greek history teacher of mine. Guy loved Greece beyond belief. So we had a final on “in your opinion” was ancient Greece better or worse because of the separate states. I said worse and used facts and tied it into the United States as coming together. He gave me a d because i went against his love for Greece and would not give me any specifics. I said to him that perhaps he should change the topic of his final next year.
Sometimes these professors are out of their mind.
On a similar vein, some of my Art History profs would include a type of question on their quizzes & exams that I thought was genius. They would show a piece of art by an artist that was covered in class, but not that particular work. Then you had to identify the artist and support your choice with reasons why. It really forced you to focus on the artist’s style, techniques, themes, etc. rather than just memorizing images and dates. They typically gave most of the points on the strength of your argument, not just guessing the right artist.
