Some things that have been bothering me

[EasterJoy]

Too bad redbetta left, but maybe she’ll take a peek later.

I found this whole presentation amusing because, in some ways, I would have identified with her in school. One has to realize that those who have control over our lives are almost NEVER our friends. Their purpose is to pursue their own ambitions through teaching or whatever it is that they’re doing.

I was always impatient with students who would declare fondness for “good old Professor X”. “What are you thinking? I would sometimes ask. His job is to weed you out of here if he doesn’t think you meet his standards. He’s not your friend.”

I didn’t exactly think of them as enemies, fully, but as persons, part of whose function is to do me harm (from my perspective) to be overcome. “You think I can’t make it” my internal dialogue would go “I’ll show you I can, and no, I won’t start a drive to put a statue of you on campus.”

In business, it’s the same. One can be cordial, even friendly, with those with whom one does business, but that person is always asking himself whether someone else would do a better or cheaper job than me. So it’s not a matter of being enemies, but it’s not a matter of friendship, either.

I think a lot of the time we expect better of people than they’re going to deliver, and we can be disappointed in them and in life if we don’t realize every last second of life is a struggle.

As a pre-med student, Redbetta, you surely realize there are no “castles” when it comes to human health. It’s all just a swirling cavalry battle out on some Eurasian steppe. Sometimes the Polish knights win, and sometimes the Mongols win. Your body fights every moment to sustain your life. Bacteria, molds, viruses abound, and are constantly on the attack. Your immune system fights them every waking and sleeping hour. If it didn’t, you would quickly succumb. Life is like that in other ways too.

Call me cynical if you wish, but that’s what life is. Don’t make the mistake of expecting too much of it. But neither make the mistake of thinking you can’t make it a joyous battle. You can.

Some of my college professors came to my wedding or sent wedding presents and I still keep in touch with them. I do not think that even the professors I did not like had any intention of “weeding” me or anyone else out. They certainly didn’t become college professors instead of going into industry jobs because of their “ambition.” I have heard about that kind of professor, but they are rare.

Honestly, do you really think that none of the people in the National Academy of Sciences or who have won Nobel Prizes care about their students or their colleagues? Do you think they are all arrogant, ambitious, and essentially sociopathic SOBs who only care about themselves and how they can use other people?

It you really carried that defensive attitude through college and your professional life, you missed out big time. That’s very sad.

 

[angelic06]

Redbetta,

I graduated with a BA in psychology, and like you, I also was premed. I agree, a lot of psychology is junk passing off as science and am sometimes embarrassed as to my major, but much of it can be used in my future goals. (I do postbacc premed piecemeal—I am interested in ophthalmology.) For example, understanding the basics of sensation and perception is important in ophthalmology and emergency medicine; physicians can gain some clues as to whether or not a patient is dead by flashing light into their eyes and checking for reflexes.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Some of my college professors came to my wedding or sent wedding presents and I still keep in touch with them. I do not think that even the professors I did not like had any intention of “weeding” me or anyone else out. They certainly didn’t become college professors instead of going into industry jobs because of their “ambition.” I have heard about that kind of professor, but they are rare.

Honestly, do you really think that none of the people in the National Academy of Sciences or who have won Nobel Prizes care about their students or their colleagues? Do you think they are all arrogant, ambitious, and essentially sociopathic SOBs who only care about themselves and how they can use other people?

It you really carried that defensive attitude through college and your professional life, you missed out big time. That’s very sad.

Sad it may be to you, but it wasn’t to me. I found it challenging and, at times, exhilarating. It is exactly the job function of professors to recognize and reward excellence and to weed out the poor performers, which they relentlessly do. Now, this professor or that might love his wife and children. He might nurture wounded puppies or spend his nights working in a soup kitchen. But in his relationship with me, it’s strictly reward me if I excel and fail me if I fail, however cordially he might greet me in the student lounge. In that relationship, then, it is my function to overcome him in the sense that I must meet or exceed the expectations he has for those who he fails; even the expectations he has of those he does not fail.

 

[Xantippe]

Sad it may be to you, but it wasn’t to me. I found it challenging and, at times, exhilarating. It is exactly the job function of professors to recognize and reward excellence and to weed out the poor performers, which they relentlessly do. Now, this professor or that might love his wife and children. He might nurture wounded puppies or spend his nights working in a soup kitchen. But in his relationship with me, it’s strictly reward me if I excel and fail me if I fail, however cordially he might greet me in the student lounge. In that relationship, then, it is my function to overcome him in the sense that I must meet or exceed the expectations he has for those who he fails; even the expectations he has of those he does not fail.

There’s a nicer term than “weed out.” Let’s say, “help students figure out if they are a good match for the program.”

 

[Burt_Macklin]

There’s a nicer term than “weed out.” Let’s say, “help students figure out if they are a good match for the program.”

And that’s perfectly fair IMHO. I know I don’t want students who can’t solve simple math problems designing the bridges I drive on.

 

[Ridgerunner]

There’s a nicer term than “weed out.” Let’s say, “help students figure out if they are a good match for the program.”

In my case, it was a matter of dodging the weed-eater.

I grew up in the Ozarks and had attended a truly terrible high school. I got admitted to a Jesuit college that was, at the time, all male and very, very difficult to get through if one had a poor high school education.

I realized very quickly that a) I was going to be obliged to write more papers than I had ever written in my life, and b) that the professors really had no desire to help a fellow along. It was “root hog or die” in courses about which I knew nothing at all. Virtually the entire student body had attended Catholic high schools or country day schools and had been exposed to a great deal.

I decided the only way I could survive it to begin with was to do every single paper as if it was a debate. I had been in debate in high school and knew the structure, use of evidence, and so on. In fact, had I not been given a scholarship to be on the college debating team I could not have possibly attended that school.

So I did. I learned, interestingly, that the approach was the very best way to deal with those courses. Every single one. English lit? Find an obscure aspect of the novel, research it, set up the sides of the arguments about it, resolve them in favor of one or the other side of it or come up with a new one; a “counterplan”. Philosophy? Same thing. Set Aquinas against some philosopher or other; argue their positions, resolve. Economics? Same thing.

So, for me it was all a battle against the weeding out process (and there was a lot of that in those days). Since I had to convince the professor at least that I knew enough about the subject matter to argue about it in the face of potentially merciless critique, the professor himself was automatically my adversary.

It was an interesting experience. The first year was a nightmare, but then after awhile my technique (combined with better understanding of the subject matter) allowed me to “win” many a battle. Ultimately, I came to the conclusion that a good high school education (other than in debate) is not much of an advantage in college if one can survive that first year.

 

[EasterJoy]

Sad it may be to you, but it wasn’t to me. I found it challenging and, at times, exhilarating. It is exactly the job function of professors to recognize and reward excellence and to weed out the poor performers, which they relentlessly do. Now, this professor or that might love his wife and children. He might nurture wounded puppies or spend his nights working in a soup kitchen. But in his relationship with me, it’s strictly reward me if I excel and fail me if I fail, however cordially he might greet me in the student lounge. In that relationship, then, it is my function to overcome him in the sense that I must meet or exceed the expectations he has for those who he fails; even the expectations he has of those he does not fail.

No, if he is in academics to teach and does not resent having to teach because it is the price he had to pay to get a research laboratory and graduate students to help him with his research, the whole point of his relationship with you is to educate you. That is why he didn’t just get a job at NIH or NSF or Los Alamos or Monsanto or Bell Labs.

If he isn’t there to teach you, I’m thinking he really does not care whether or not he “weeds you out” for someone else, either. No one bright enough to be a professor goes into it in order to be the grim reaper for some medical school. Sorry, but life is too short.

I can guarantee you that the vast majority of professors wish their students simply wanted to learn about their field for the sake of learning it. If they never had to grade anyone, but got to just write tests that students could use for feedback, what a wonderful world it would be.

I can guarantee you that the vast majority of professors wish all of their students would master the material well enough to earn an “A,” If your chemistry professor could give out that American Chemical Society exam in the spring and everyone who was sitting in his class in September was still there and they all aced it, what a wonderful world it would be.

Does he want to make sure that he preserves the reputation of his university, so that people who read an A on the transcript of his institution will know that it represents a real achievement? Let us hope so, for the sake of those who deserve to be given that recognition. That is not “weeding out.” That is reserving reward for those who merit it. I can tell you, though, this is not really an aspect of the job that people particularly enjoy. What they enjoy is the actual student who has mastered and come to appreciate the field that the professor himself loves. They want you to excel. That is what gives them pleasure. Having to grade and give great marks to some and not to others is simply a necessary evil involved in what they do.

The student who only cares about his or her grades and racking up points, as if those mean something in the big scheme of things, by the way, is the bane of a teacher. It is understood that the student has to care about those things, but when the student ONLY cares about those things you hope that this is not someone who becomes your colleague on the faculty or your personal physician some day.

 

[EasterJoy]

There’s a nicer term than “weed out.” Let’s say, “help students figure out if they are a good match for the program.”

I cannot tell you how many hours I have spent personally tutoring my students so they could learn chemistry well enough to pass their nursing exams and realize their dream of working in the field of health care. The students I loved teaching the most were the ones who came in afraid of chemistry and afraid it would keep them from becoming nurses or paramedics or doctors but who left both liking the subject and feeling the rush of knowing they had mastered it, that they could confidently calculate the dose of a drug and not have to worry about killing anybody and could understand a lecture about a pharmacological process or a metabolic pathway involved in disease or treatment.

I learned that love of teaching from my teachers, from my professors in both college and graduate school. I take it as a slur on them to imply that they had this sick desire to pronounce someone else a failure, particularly with regards to the ones who took a lower salary than half of their students got even with less educational attainment than they had because they wanted to make a positive difference in the lives of others.

That sick attitude of living to declare others a failure exists, but it is repugnant in a teacher and a sure sign that the teacher really ought to move on to a different line of work. My professors would have all thought the same.

 

[pianistclare]

It’s one thing to be passionate about teaching. That I get,
It’s completely quite another to keep pushing someone who has no real vocation in a particular field.
I’m thinking of all the people with no bedside manner, people who give the wrong prescriptions, people who should have never entered medicine, not mention plenty of other fields.
There’s plenty of lousy teachers, for example.
Plenty of people who should not be doing what they do.
And someone kept telling them that old saw “you can be anything you want to be!”
No. No you can’t. You can only do what you have a talent for. I can think of several regular posters who are in the wrong field and they realize it now. Too late. After years of costly tuition and a miserable career.
Far better to steer them to something they can actually do.
If they’re willing to listen, of course.

 

[guanophore]

Yeah.

People don’t want doctors that see them just as bags of bones and organs.

Or radiologists who just seem them as a specimen who needs a photograph.

I would definitely report signs of abuse. I am not some callous monster.

No one is saying that, just that your attitude about incorporating and caring for the soul seems a bit lacking.

I just won’t recommend counselors every time someone breaks a nail like people do where I’m at.

You seem to have a skewed perspective on this. You did not go to the clinic with a broken nail.

You seem to be minimizing the stress that college students experience by characterizing it this way. Students drop out every day because they are overwhelmed by a variety of factors. That is a major life decision and may be avoided with some intervention.

Also, I could only dedicate so much time to one patient before I need to move on. I am just going to address what it is in my position to address and that is it.

It may seem this way to you now, but when you are in the field you will address those things you are required to address, including mental health screening. You will have to check the boxes that you asked the questions and sign your name that you did the screening. No one expects the screener to fix the problem, or provide the interventions, just make the referral, as was done for you. How many seconds do you think it took?

I did not so much have a problem with the doctor asking how I like it at campus as I did with the recommendation for psychological services attached to a culture test. In my opinion, it was non of her business and I will tell her that the next time I see her.

You seem to have a very high degree of defensiveness about this, which says something important about you.

The referral was not attached to the culture test, but to your response to a stressful environment. Stress contributes to physical illness, which affects people psychologically. For some reason you do not seem to want to accept that your physiology is like that of the rest of humanity.

Getting defensive and accusatory with someone who is trying to care for you, and who is following the protocols they have been given, will demonstrate that you are more in need of counseling.

I am going to leave this thread alone for a few days… Also, right before a thread dies, sometimes people try to get cheeky or sarcastic to punctuate the mark.

I have not read your previous threads, so I will have to take your word for it. Certainly, when you post a thread, then don’t want to listen to the feedback, people may feel like you have wasted their time.