Least favorite Professor

[clonedmax]

Reading through this thread from people that appear to be engineer grads, it looks like the most popular are a math prof or Sturges (I never had him, but he did have a reputation), so I'll continue that trend. :wink:

I had a math prof for Calc 165 that I assumed no longer taught, because I took that course in 1989. Oops, checked the ISU site, still there, Roger Maddux. :no: I see in looking at his bio, that he graduated from Berkeley, he definately fits the Berkeley stereotype.

I probably in retrospect wasn't quite ready for calc right out of high school, but this guy certainly didn't help any. He talked alot about theory and didn't seem to do many problems in class. My biggest pet peeve by far were his tests. They were true-false exams, that's right true-false calculus examinations.

Some of the questions were like:
Theorem 2.1.1 in the textbook states this: blah blah blah, true or false, who cares?
The derivative of (insert long string of variables) is this (another long string of variables), true or false Usually here he would change a plus sign to a minus sign or something to that effect to make it false.

Each exam had 20 questions. If you answered the question correctly, you received 2 points, so 40 possible. If you answered the question incorrectly, you received 0 points. If you did not answer the question at all, you received 1 point.

During every exam there would be at least one student who sat around for five minutes, walked up and turned in a blank exam and got 20/40 for not trying. I remember once getting a 22/40 or something like that and thinking Why the hell did I even try?

Anyway that was my indoctrination to college math and if anybody is still reading this thanks for listening to my almost 20 year old rant!

 

[cyco2000]

Anyone have Hodges for Physics 221 around the mid-90s or so? He gets my vote for worst.

A close second and third would be the previously mentioned Tomlinson duo in the ComSci dept.

I had Hodges then. I didn't think anyone could make Physics less interesting, but he did.

Outside of class, quite the interesting cat, that's for sure.

 

[MeanDean]

Since I'm old most of you weren't probably even born yet. His name was "Cook" and he taught Physics. I think it was 201, 202, 203, maybe? Anyway, I had him for 202 and barely missed getting a D. His lectures were dull and he tried to work problems but invariably got them wrong, confusing everybody. His tests were largely the "exception" things, not the stuff you actually learned. I told myself if he was my professor in 203 I'd drop. I walked into the hall, sat in the front row. He walked in and started to write his name on the board and I promptly got up and walked out to drop the course. I took it the next quarter from a different prof and got a strong B+

 

[mj4cy]

Anyone who has had Robert Gregorac will agree that he is the worst professor ever. He would mumble, facing the board for 50 minutes and when you asked him a question, he would say "go home and learn it"

I'm still taking this to the grave! Anyone who had him should agree.

 

[GeronimusClone]

Any current Greenlee students can let me know on this, is John Thomas still teaching Public Relations? His class was the worst thing I'd ever seen.
All we did was get together in groups once a week and think up skits and then the other day of the week we'd do them for the class. The class graded you, so it turned into "Who can make us laugh" and not "teach me about public relations." His teaching philosophy and grading style was the biggest cop out in history.