You’d be hard pressed to find a doctor who’d take pride in endangering their patients, or an architect whose designs rarely passed safety inspections. So why is there a population of professors who take pride in failing many students?
It’s been suggested that professors do this to motivate students through spite.
Spite is a good motivator; most people want to prove those who doubt them wrong. But, spite can only motivate a student for so long. Hyperfocusing on a single course, when you have other courses and responsibilities like a job or an internship, just doesn’t seem worth it in the long run.
Not to mention the fact that it’s been reported that harder classes rarely equal higher grades.
That level of academic stress has been proven to reduce motivation, hinder academic achievement and lead to college students dropping out.
It’s also been suggested that professors intentionally make classes hard to pass to gatekeep careers from unmotivated, lazy students. Better to fail in college than to fail in a career.
But why is cruelty the default? Why fail those who can’t reach your standard rather than try and bring them up? Or maybe that means being honest and saying that this may not be the field for them.
Teachers who take pride in failure deserve no respect. If you end up with one of these professors, who brag on day one of almost never passing students, drop that class. Don’t put your future success and current mental health on the line for someone on an ego trip. Try and find the same class taught by another professor
If WSU only offers that one class taught by that one professor, try looking at surrounding community colleges, such as Butler or Cowley, to take the class and transfer the credit to your WSU transcript.
Eventually, low class sizes will mean these professors have to change and grow, or be stuck with little respect and potentially lowered salaries. You aren’t dependent on them, they are dependent on you. There’s always a way through.
If a teacher cares more about their class being hard, rather than their students leaving prepared, then that’s not a person who wants to teach, that’s someone who just wants power over others’ futures.
