College Professor FIRED After Students Cry 

My first day taking Organic Chemisty I in college, my professor said, "A lot of you are pre-med, and I'm going to make sure you don't get a good grade in this class." I dropped the class immediately and took it the following semester with a professor who wanted us to learn and actually taught us. I learned every molecule and molecular pathway we studied and earned my A, because I learned the material. Any professor who wants his students to fail isn't "hard," he or she has the wrong philosophy for teaching.

Ana is complety right about Organic Chemistry being hard. Chemistry is already hard, but organic chemistry is famous within the field for being super hard. So the kids suddenly finding themselves scoring lower than they expect is normal. Them demanding that the course/subject be made easier, however, is not.

Back in undergrad Organic Chemistry was the hardest class I ever took. It broke me and made me switch my major from premed to psychology. If students are really struggling and getting 0s on exams that career path might not be for them. I am so happy I had that realization becase now I’m a therapist and happier than ever.

I was a professor for over 12 years. I had students that couldnt take notes. They all explained they had never taken notes before. I asked them to explain. They said their high school teachers did not require notes that the teachers wrote out their notes for them and just gave Theym handouts to memorize. I had to spend a couple weeks every semester teaching students how to take notes and how to actually LEARN instead of just memorizing. I kept after class hours to give them extra help. But I also had quite a few sports students who literally could NOT read. We are forbidden to refer students to disability services. They have to know to ask for those services thrm selves. I did it anyway. They fired that man because Colleges are getting rid of or has stopped hiring tenure track positions. They hire Adjuncts that they only pay on a contract basis, about $1500 per class per a 16 week semester. They only allow Adjuncts to teach 2 classes per semester. But then they Stack classes. That means they load 3 course levels into one class and overload the classes. So you have 3 levels of students on 3 separate syllabus you are teaching one class and being paid to teach one class But your actually teaching 3 classes. And between semesters you are NOT eligible for unemployment because you are part-time adjunct. It's shameful what these Universities are doing to educators.

It’s jaw-dropping, isn’t it? Not long ago, someone I know who has a Masters in education, wrote me a note so full of misspellings and grammatical errors I was shocked. He is currently teaching high school!

I had an O chem teacher that would have basically 5 questions built into a single question. So even if you got 4 out of 5 correct, it counted as 0 for your score. I was one of the few people that passed in my class, and many people there were on their 2nd or 3rd attempt. I put more effort into that class than any other class I ever had and I left with a C instead of an A. I certainly didnt learn more by dealing with bullshit testing methods. It just sucked.

This is what happens when teachers aren't allowed to have standards in k-12. Parents and admin pave the way for entitled kids and then get hit with reality in Uni. I've had unfair professors before, this doesn't seem to be the case here. He even tried to make the tests easier. If this subject is so difficult then they either need to make an intro course or split it up into 2 classes to make it more digestible. One thing the kids should do is complain that he was fired. They didn't want him fired, ok, but that was the result. Now take responsibility. Petition to undo it. This is ridiculous.

Less than 25% of his students signed the petition. This smacks of overprivileged teens crying over not succeeding just because they showed up.

Used to be that 85% of students failed organic chemistry the first time they take it. Everywhere.

I have been to grad school twice. The first time was for my MS in Electrical Engineering pre-pandemic, the second is now for my PhD. I have taught undergrad classes when the professor was out of town and have graded homework and exams and held office hours. The amount of cheating and laziness now is unbelievable. Students regularly try to copy homework problems from the internet without even making sure it is the same problem. During my office hours I have had students ask me how to do the homework, not for help or clarification, but to actually walk them through it. The answer was literally in the textbook, which I found out the vast majority of students in the class never bothered to read or even open (the section in question was even assigned reading for that homework). This was pre-pandemic. It is even worse now. In the last exam I proctored, a student asked me to tell him what the variables on the provided formula sheet meant. Like have you even paid attention once in class?!? Classes in some fields like STEM are hard by their very nature and the material can only be simplified so much. Yes professors shouldn't make the classes impossible but neither should students pass simply because they show up or complain when they do badly. In some fields (particularly those related to medicine or some types of engineering), not knowing or understanding something can literally kill someone. If you don't understand the material after spending hours studying it, that's not the professors fault, that's on you, go to office hours if you need help. If you don't like the professor or the textbook, look up the topic on line, find another textbook, or read a research paper on the topic, don't complain about the professor when you are the one not putting in the work.

I taught chemistry, organic and physics for 18 years as a high school teacher and an undergraduate professor. There has been a terrible lowering of standards. I had physics students who couldn’t do simple trigonometry and expected to pass. Absolute nonsense!!

How on earth do college's square the 200%+ mark up and then not paying professors properly? I can't with these institutions, man

Taught at a private school and I can assure you this is true. It’s all about the money. They are just pushing those Kids through, curve every test, and if you try to make the kids earn the grade they want they will complain, and you will lose your job

I've a doctorate in molecular biology specialising in reproductive endocrinology and I found organic chemistry bloody difficult. These students 🤦

Part of college is eliminating those without the skills and tools for advanced degrees

I grew up in Switzerland... when I was 17, I was an exchange student in the US (public high-school in Pittsburgh, PA)... I took AP classes only and had an A in all of my classes, even English)... in Switzerland I was a good, but nowhere great, student. I was shocked how easy school was in the US and how ready teachers were to give you extra credit ( a thing I've never heard of b4 moving to the USA), to help you during exams or to lift your grade after the fact. I used to see things like that all the time. I'm now in law school in Europe. There are about 700 people in each of my classes... no way to have any communication with the professors... if you forget a time-line, are 2min late to an exam or you forgot to sign in for an exam... you fail. No if ands or buts...

All of this is as good an argument for free higher education as I've heard. That professor should have been lauded for his integrity. Instead . . .

I've had classes with 75-80% failure rate and everyone accepted the result and went back to work.

The problem I see is that college is now a prerequisite to get many jobs. For example, my girlfriend has an associates degree in accounting and she’s worked seven years in the industry. She took a practice cpa exam and aced it yet she can’t actually become a cpa unless she has a bachelors degree. University should be there to educate curious minds and actually educate people not just become another big money machine for banks

I’ve had a lecturer who made it far too difficult to pass an exam because of his idealistic approach to teaching/testing (pretty much like the guy in the story), only 1 person (out of 100) passed and he had to step down after realising his error. I think TYT is over simplifying this story and blindly accepting the teacher’s assertion that young learners are too pampered when really they have an outdated approach to teaching.

A law professor told our first year class what he expected from our work (he might have just received a bunch of really shitty coursework submissions) by saying: "We don't go down to your level, you come up to ours." I wanted to slow clap him, it was so scathing, yet motivating.

I started college right after highschool in 2008. I went to my community college in MD. I was enrolled in their biomedical honors program and I personally wasn't ready and I did not put in the full effort. It amazes me today how much easier it has gotten for these kids to just pass. My nephew just graduated from UMD as a civil engineer and I was proud for him. Then for some reason he was just being extremely rude to me saying I don't know calculus or Organic chemistry. I swollowed my pride and allowed him to have that moment. If this is where the new generation is headed then we are screwed. I never thought this behavior was common in my own family. He doesn't know it but he lost a good networking partner until he can offer an apology. I still work for and Amazing University doing what I look to do. I also have future business license I've applied for in MD. He could have been a part of but speaking to someone like your entitled is rude and if I would have told his parents he would be ashamed. We gotta respect everyone on Earth for what they do and not just what they do. All these young adults getting by with the bare minimum is crazy. All of them know how to cheat on their tests. How to get pay people to write their documents etc.... School is just a paper. A lot of graduates would say they don't even use half the shit they learned. It's all about the GPA whores and school rankings and money.

I had a chemistry teacher like this first year University. She spoke very broken English, and whenever you ask the question, she would humiliate you and make you feel stupid for asking tell you to figure it out on your own, then, ignore you. We all thought she was a terrible teacher what we ended up doing was organizing student study groups and busting our asses to pass this class. We started out as a class of 20 and only eight people finish the class and passed. I understand being tough is good, but basically we felt we were self taught, and we could’ve taken that course without her even being there, because everything we learned, we learned from the textbook and from each other it pisses me off that she was paid six figures to non-teach a class

NYU's decision was dead wrong. This is a sure fire way to destroy the high respect & standing of the institution in the Academia. I would not compromise my standards of teaching for any commercial advantage. It is ethically & professionally wrong!🙏🏻

My rural community college education was enough to get me accepted to Stanford as an undergrad transfer. But when I went back to pay it forward by teaching at the same school as an adjunct, I was shocked by the attitude of many students. I had multiple students tell me, " This class shouldn't be so hard. It's only a community college." I was teaching a transferable general ed English class which is intended to provide the same rigor as a comparable class taught at a four-year university .

Chemistry is horribly difficult and most students give up. Too much work.

If this professor had a research program bringing in a few million in grant money, he'd still be there.

once they get their new teacher and their grades don't change, then they will know it wasn't him it was them...

Organic chem is not for dummies. NYU also happens to be a very good school... so for them to dumb down their curriculum and fire the teacher is a travesty. This is all about money.

Well over 10 years since college but I do remember in my freshman year, a student got up and started complaining that the teacher wasn't explaining the topic to his satisfaction. The rest of the class was gobsmacked. Little did we realize it was the start of things to come.

It IS possible to make a class impossibly difficult. It doesn’t mean everyone has gone soft.

Re: college professors ~ A math prof spent the first class complaining that her job should be research, not teaching a bunch know-nothings who don;t care about math. 65% of that class failed! A history prof bragged that in 35 yrs of teaching he could count on one hand the number of "A's" he'd given out. The film history prof showed up 30 minutes late for one class. Several students placed their homework on the desk corner and left. She went crazy, screaming, knocked the papers off the desk and said all those people were getting zeros! Not just an F but 0! Then a history prof who went the other way. The class before any test, he'd do a power point using the test and the multiple choice answers. True stories!

It's organic chem. WTH did these kids expect?! 😂

Organic chemistry is not for everyone.

I took organic chemistry from him at Princeton in 1984...lol. I definitely would prefer a medical doctor who got an A in his class over one who wrote a letter of complaint about him, just sayin. It was a tough class he actually made people work to get a C and you pretty much failed on his curve if you were lower than 70 percent. His class is/was a pre med requirement and he didn't think anyone with less than a 70 should move on. Tough but fair and some of these geniuses couldn't take it. He had the exact same reputation and method back in 1984. I didn't mind his methods. He was an awesome lecturer and spent as much time with me as I needed in post test review sessions, etc. personally, I much prefer the "Mastery Concept" style of instruction with a 90% requirement to pass and constructive methods to get there rather than a graded/curve type system. I'd say his firing was unjustified. They should have found a way to work with him. Not a good look for NYU to reject a longtime reknowned Princeton Prof because his class was too hard.

I'm torn on this one. On the one hand, I can definitely sympathize with the stress students are under trying to get degrees knowing that they are incurring preposterous amounts of debt, and I have had a few professors in engineering school who were demonstrably awful. Having said that, I have spent some time teaching high school classes in recent years, and I realized that even with public high schools there is a "customer service" mentality which puts all of the onus on the teachers if students do poorly - many students want to play video games or use social media all day and then get a good grade regardless.

As a high school chemistry teacher who has always worked extremely hard to uphold high standards of integrity and provide my students with a rigorous education to make sure they are prepared and equipped for their university chemistry courses, this breaks my heart. The "dumbing down" of education in the U.S. is rampant and students are becoming more and more entitled (which honestly is the fault of parents who have continuously enabled them rather than holding them accountable). It's appalling and is just one of the numerous reasons that many teachers are leaving the profession. I refuse to work in a school where I am not allowed to hold my students accountable. If an administrator ever tells me I have to "dumb down" my course or give a student a fake grade, that's the day I will resign. I refuse to waste my time and talents on those who do not deserve or appreciate them. Obviously, I don't know the whole story about this professor, but this situation is a sad commentary on the state of education in the U.S. today. In many cases, teachers are told by admin to pass a student or lose their job. It's disgusting.

I was a business minor in college until I took an accounting course and realized I didn’t have the skills to comprehend the material, so, I re-examined my minor and eventually dropped it. If accounting was going to be part of my business degree, then clearly a business degree was not the path for me. If I was meant to be in business in some other way, it would not be through that route. Maybe the same should apply here. If you can’t comprehend material directly related to your degree to the point where you have to petition to get someone who is “easier,” perhaps it is not the degree for you - not when you’re going to go on to be my doctor anyway.

Only around 26% of his students signed the petition. I'd like to hear what the other 74% think.

All the way back in the 70's organic chemistry was known to be the hardest class to pass. Of course students drop out so they don't fail. Many took the class several times.

Firing the professor is wrong.

I have been an university teacher.. and students think that because they have paid, they deserve good grades. I fought with students, teachers, parents and administrators

This almost happened to one of my Engineering professors back in 07’. The subject matter was difficult but he was always fair and willing to work with you. You could see the hurt in his eyes when he addressed the class about the situation.

I'm going to be honest...those students are in the wrong. I'm a chemistry teacher myself, and I tell them on DAY ONE: "Welcome to the Big Leagues...this is probably the first REAL class you've ever had"

I thought Americans would catch on to organic chemistry easily. They elected a carbon based, gas bag as President in 2016!

I think these kids are babies. That said, I did have one prof that was ridiculously hard and even accused a student of cheating because she passed one of our tests

So when something is too hard we complain and get the person fired? Wow.

College putting money over performance. This is not good.

Educators have been ringing warning bells regarding the lack of basic intellectual comprehension for years. Seriously. Look it up. It's pathetic at this point.

As someone who took the harder track organic chem 1, 2, and 3 in university, it can be difficult, but sometimes professors write tests to be needlessly difficult, sometimes without realizing it. However we don't have enough context, like actual questions or supplied material, yet everyone here's an expert.

These are students who can't put their phones down for five minutes, got a trophy for showing up and were told they are great and perfect for being born

True story. Had a young professor in college who told me I wasn’t going to make anything of myself. Years later when I was working as a DGA, 1st assistant director in the film industry I received an email from this professor looking for a job as a production assistant, (gopher), on a film. After looking at her resume I realized who she was and wrote her back reminding her of what she’d told me back in college. She didn’t get the job.

Organic Chemistry is a "Washout" class. On day 1, my professor let every single student know that our "effort" will not be considered in the grades we earn. We will provide the correct answers on each exam, sufficient to achieve a minimum grade of "C", or we will fail to progress through our major. After attempting Orgo (once, twice, sometimes three times), many students ended up selecting different areas of study in college. Working as intended.

Given that 25% of the students signed the petition says to me that he at least he needed to be closely monitored to see if he’s dropping the ball. 25% is a lot more than a few bad apples .

Organic chemistry is hard. If you can't hack it, you don't get to pass. You don't get a participation trophy just for showing up. Otherwise, you end up with doctors and nurses who don't know anything at all. Is that the future we want?

I had a teacher in physics who once told the class before the xmas exam "its not boxing, I can hit as low as I want". The whole class flunked. And then he says its OK, because he's gonna normalize the grade. Not cool. I bust my ass to study for an impossible test, that I get mid 30% score, normalize to a 80-90% grade. That is not what I AM PAYING FOR. Not to mention I have OTHER CLASSES who I need to study for, and you WILL take it into account.

It is almost by definition that the students were not being effectively taught. It is not the professor"s job to merely provide material , but also make sure they are able to convey that information effectively to students. If your students are telling you its too difficult - then adjust / adapt so students can get that information. If the teacher was given the opportunity and they refused - i am not sure what the teachers position is exactly. If students leave your class with a fail, what was accomplished exactly?

I'm in a community college. Been there several years taking two classes at a time. I'm 56 years old currently. I'm not struggling as much as I had been when I was a 19 year old going to another Community College for the first time. Two and a half years I really wasn't cutting it because I wasn't mature enough and I didn't grasp it enough. I failed myself and spent 30 years working full time kicking my ass. Now since I no longer able to work, I go to school and enjoying the texts. I'm enjoying the classes. There had been one class that drove me nuts and I tried to get the logic of it and still couldn't. One particular professor had a flunk rate despite the fact it was really trying to communicate the theory of philosophy, critical thinking. His theory was too complicated even for the staff but he's tenure. I didn't have a complaint about the teacher himself but his theories regarding philosophy in the way to look at it was conflicting with everything I learned all my life and I've flunked it but at least I can admit to myself I tried and I'm not kicking myself in the ass over that one. However there's going to be one particular class I need to retake and that's going to be critical thinking in literature English. My first class coming in as an adult was that one and I had a conflict with a professor. They costed me a grade and the points. Professors no longer teaching there but I still need to get the class redone. But that's all right. I'm going to get it done and I'm going to graduate. There are professors out there that are tough as hell but you have to know how to navigate with them. Did the students actually talk to the professor and try to discuss what was the problem with organic chemistry? I never took the class because it was never offered at my college. Besides I don't think english, political science, or even history, has anything to do with organic chemistry.

NYU was in the wrong here. A bunch of withdrawls is an issue and its something that needs to be addressed yes, but firing the teacher is not how you do it. This rather smacks of something ulterior and the student petition was just the opportunity for them to unload the teacher.

Organic Chemistry gets a bad rep for being hard, but it’s a really fun class. When I was a tutor, I taught my students how to study it and I also told them to believe their professors (what I meant was that they would grapple with matter of fact things making it all seem harder, and I would simply repeat the same information and just tell them to believe it and stop getting in the way of their own ability to synthesize the information). My students turned into Orgo beasts who enjoyed tackling Orgo concepts students often hated, such as synthesis. I was so proud of them.

As someone with a PhD in organic chemistry who currently works as a tenured college professor teaching Chemistry, Cenk and Anna’s assessment of this situation and higher education in general is exactly correct. It is extraordinary difficult for me to have a student fail my course and me and my colleagues will be pressured by administration to give a passing grade often bumping students up by several percentage points. All the while the material and expectations, including how we define a passing grade, have consistently decreased over time. For the record I’m at a Canadian institution so this is not a uniquely American problem. Maitland Jones is a brilliant chemist and if these students cared more about the subject matter and less about their grade they would realize how fortunate they are to have the opportunity to learn from this deep well of knowledge. This man knows more than you could ever read in any text. Finally, it is unacceptable in 2022 to complain about how difficult it is to learn organic chemistry. There are infinite excellent FREE videos on RU-vid to help you achieve a very solid foundation in this subject. Even if we speculate that Prof Jones teaching methods are unorthodox or dated, this story simply highlights student entitlement and the conversion of institutes of higher education into corporations where the customer is always right.

I agree with the hosts, the students need to present some actual evidence that the class was unfairly hard. Maybe give them a chance to take a test on the same subject prepared by a different professor in the department. Just putting time into something doesn't guarantee mastery, especially if you aren't studying/practicing properly. For instance, if you've got two students in the same class and one studies a little bit every night in the weeks leading up to an exam, and the other just pulls an all-nighter cramming the night before, the former will generally do better. Here's a few stories from my college days (disturbingly, decades ago). I took a course Introduction to Astrophysics - intended to be an upper-level course utilizing basic calculus. The instructor dumbed it down so that the only equations we needed were algebra-level, usually involving ratios; the tests were at that level, and even included multiple choice questions; this was consistent with the homework assignments, so they can't claim to have been surprised. The test scores were mediocre at best. A course in classical mechanics, again largely based on calculus and differential equations, but the professor allowed us to use calculators in the exams just in case a question required coming up with a specific numerical answer. Many of my classmates abused that by programming equations into their calculators. I had a more limited calculator that couldn't do that sort of thing. Somehow, I still got scores well above the average. A course in experimental physics included taking a nationally standardized test; it was part of the student's grade, but the department used the results as a way of assessing the performance of the department. The student that spent a couple weeks in advance reviewing ended up getting the highest score, despite not having taken many of the upper-level elective classes that were part of the exam. A course called Special Topics. Each week, a different student would select an article from a scientific journal; everybody read the article (and as was explained on day 1) should have tracked down the references in that article to find supporting information or get clarity on points that were glossed over. The student who selected the article had to give a presentation, and then lead a group discussion afterwards. We were told on day one that participation would be a significant portion of our grade. One student "only" got a B, was told by the professor it was because of not contributing to the discussions; the excuse given was "but I didn't understand", but that didn't prevent anybody else from contributing. An introductory course in sociology. I needed it to meet a graduation requirement, was facing a challenging semester and had heard the professor was generous in grade curving (see which student get the highest score on the test, increase that to 100, and give everybody else the same boost). Not only that, but the questions on the tests were pulled directly from end-of-chapter questions in the text book (often multiple choice and short-answer). The "high" score on tests was typically only in the low 80's; despite a nearly 20-point boost, many students still struggled to get a passing grade.

When I was 16 I took an advanced Biology class and for one test, I stayed up studying all night.. my teacher had one section that was maybe five questions long and it had never been covered during class… It’s like she had to throw this curveball section in to make sure that no one aced the test… I should’ve aced it and the questions that I missed were those questions that she inserted.. There are bad teachers out there that can’t handle it when their students understand the topic, study for the test, and then ace it..

That's why there shouldn't be money in Education, Healthcare & politics as it clouds the judgment of what the right thing to do

I teach at the local junior college. No one has mentioned that our students are working and going to school at the same time during a pandemic. My students are basically zombies just going from work to school and then back home again. People do what they have to do to survive and sometimes there is no room for studying when you are just trying to survive. I have changed my teaching to make the material more understandable, but since the pandemic started, I have to work twice as hard to make sure my students are doing passable work.

Organic chemistry was one of my harder courses in college. Only thing harder was genetics. It required a ton of memorization and work.

I took some college classes as a senior on a whim (I was retired already had a college education) and I don't know if it was because I was older or what but I sympathized with what professors had to put up with.

Spoiled children. Lord forbid the students actually get an education!

At this rate, NYU's pre med degrees won't be worth the paper used to for the diplomas.

Sounds like entitled rich kids crying

I took an aviation course to become a pilot and it had a 50% drop rate. I lost at least half my class in the first semester alone. Considering that people's lives were on the line, it is understandable.

It's extremely hard to make any judgement on this unless you both know his class curriculum and have expertise in Chemistry ... I have only ever gotten one C in college. It was a community college Calculus 1 class. The majority of my schooling followed at a very highly competitive college for engineering in my state. It's easy to say I am whining when I say my Calc 1 teacher did not do a good job and his class was too hard, when you don't know anything about what was happening in there. This professor was making Calc 1 students do integrals of hyperbolic trig functions and trig integrations with minimal teaching and very poor explanations of the material. He made us do a ridiculous online assignment thing where answers had to be input into a computer in ABSOLUTELY FLAWLESS notation with rudimentary input abilities via keyboard (no exponential/sub notations, no ability to format complex equations, couldn't even see the whole of what you were putting in and had to scroll through the small box to check you had all 6 of your concurrent parenthesis closing in the right places, etc). The point is, it's very possible the class was "too hard" or "needlessly hard" depending on what was being expected for that class/how the assignments and tests were given. Even a normal test becomes impossible if you don't have sufficient time to do it.

I'm someone who got an A in both of my semester and labs of organic chemistry, and I'll tell you both were extreme challenges. I earned my grade in both. Averages on exams were Cs and even high Ds. Since the material is insanely difficult,it's just really hard when a professor makes something worse. My orgo 1 professor would rarely help us with practice problems and if he did, he would oftentimes do the problem wrong and keep redoing it, and just clearly didn't understand how to talk about chemistry to someone who didn't already understand large basics.

I live in Paris and work with visiting professionals. So many American doctors who come here talk openly of how much of what "med school" in the US does is train them up to be nothing more than sales reps for pharmaceutical companies. Executives transferred to Paris who've lived here for years can't speak the language, nor do they care about French culture apart from "macaroons" and many, often from the best schools in the US - Harvard, Wharton, Stanford etc. - routinely ask questions like, "Who is the king of France right now?" and "Why was Josephine decapitated?" And the only Louis they want to know about is Louis Vuitton. Shameful and disturbing.

I remember my pre-med friends (decades ago) saying that organic chemistry was the weed out class for the major and they were miserable the entire semester they took it. I don't care if you put in the time and worked hard, some things are too important for participation trophies.

This is really scary. I have a good friend who a art teacher. She has at least 10 to 5 students complain, about her class being too difficult. Every year 🤯😩 that is 🤬 up

As a retired professor I well remember students approaching me after receiving a grade that they found disappointing and saying, "But I spent so much time on this assignment." The expectation that a grade should largely reflect the amount of time spent on the work produced is a notion which many students need to gently abandon. While days spent on ill-conceived solutions that fail to show a real grasp of the concepts involved should not be viewed as time wasted, neither should they be regarded as the primary criterion through which one earns a top grade.

I kept about a 3.7 average throughout my time at University, one thing I think helped me to do that is I always chose the most challenging topics for my coursework, even if I hated the topic. It forced me to spend a lot more time in the library studying which ultimately resulted in me getting good grades - I basically didn’t give myself the option to coast. What separated me from most people in the class is that I actually studied and put in effort, a lot of people go to university just to coast, no real passion just attending because they think it’s what they should do. So many students are lazy, and if you aren’t accessing the course material you’re wasting everyone’s time (including yours) and you deserve to fail. Of course I got a great grade and they didn’t, I’d read 5 books on a topic in a month and they didn’t even open the prospectus lol, it’s a shame.

I went to college in 2017. Graduated in 2019. One of my writing professors straight up told us they were told to make the core classes harder so kids would fail. He was one of the best teachers I ever had. He cared about his students. The idea organic chemistry was easy according to this professor is laughable. As someone who took safety and mechanical engineering the classes were hard. It was a struggle to pass with passing grades depending on the professor. They would make things harder than they needed to be and were lazy. In my career now as a safety engineer I can tell you I don’t use most of what I took in college. It was a giant scam

I took organic chemistry in college, it's not that the professor made it hard, it's that the material itself is complicated and esoteric in nature.

I'm seeing this a little differently. My college education (horticulture) ended due my inability to pass organic chemistry after two tries. I had the same professor both times. Later, I found out that many students had a hard time with his approach to teaching, and that by selecting the other professor on staff, the same course made sense and was enjoyable due to a different method of teaching. I think the real issue here is not the students, but a lack of flexibility on the part of the professor to alter his teaching style to reach his audience. I was a good lesson for me as I taught various educational classes to prison inmates and looked to myself as the reason someone wasn't getting the material. The saying "There are no poor students, just poor teachers" is true if the student is making an effort.

As a former teacher, I would say this lazy/entitled mentality begins way before college. I remember being held responsible for a lack of effort when I was in elementary school, but while I was teaching the onus was squarely on the teacher. If a student doesn't deserve to be promoted to the next grade, as their teacher, you have to show all the different strategies you implemented to help them understand the material/ get them to just do the work/get them to come to school, etc. And even then, administration would argue that it would be a disservice to the student to keep them from advancing with their peers. During remote schooling, this issue only got worse. That being said, I remember taking calculus in college and as soon as the class was over, my professor would be out the door. He'd often say, "Any questions?" and before you could even get your hand up, he'd be halfway down the hallway. If you asked a question in the middle of class, he would be so sarcastic in his answer that you felt super dumb for still not getting it. In fact, a lot of us stopped asking questions altogether and would run into each other during tutoring hours with the math TAs. So with this story, I'm pretty torn on who's in the right. Either way, I don't think it was right to fire a professor just because pre-med students aren't passing his class. If you're going to be a doctor, you better know your shit!

When I first read about this story, one of my thoughts was "It's college. Isn't it supposed to be a little hard to help kids grow?"

...why is tuition so high...

MAKE THEM WORK FOR IT. MMONEY SHOULD NOT ABLE TO BUY A DEGREE. EARNT IT.

Hello guys, I was taken out of school in third grade and unschooled for a couple years. Then I was given a very lose curiosity based curriculum. I basically used the internet and a computer to teach myself. I got my GED at 18. When I went to college for a science degree I had to take a compass test because I had no ACT. I placed low in math but I expected that because I had little formal math education. I am dyslexic and expected that to put me in remedial English as well. Instead I maxed out the English comprehension section and was put in English 1. With computer based math 101. For the first time in my life I had to WRIGHT an essay. For a tenured professor. Who graded on a curve. In the semester I blew threw five semesters of math landing at algebra II and calculus. My first essay ever was graded at 99. It was a short story. 2000 words. She said all the others were so dry she found herself counting the words. Mine was so enthralling she had to use the word counter. It was 3600 words. She took 1 point off for sentence splices. She wrote at the end of my first essay something I will never forget. "I hope you take all the creative writing classes we offer." The rest of my class hated me and thought I was the teachers pet until I corrected her twice in one day. I say all that to say this. She was fair in her application of a curved grade, such as it can be. She never treated me like I offended her by correcting her. And she only ever gave me 3 100% so the fact that the class without me averaged 63% I didn't feel was my fault This was at a community College. She encouraged the other students to engage with me for Pointers. P.S Do you guys need a writer, btw I live in Columbus near Jeff.

This is a tough situation - I'm a college adjunct too, and after 2 years of weirdness, I've noticed students are behind in a lot of ways. I've also noticed I'm not at the top of my game as a teacher. Ignoring the broader context of a problem is never a good idea. It's no one's fault that students and teachers are off-kilter. Teachers need to set a standard that's attainable for the greatest number of students in their class.

This is insane. I wonder how many doctors will be killing us in the future because their classes are too hard. Btw, the financial motivation behind this is spot on. Smh

The generation complaining about this is the one that had their parents defend them when they were younger, and blame their teachers for lack of progress in school.

After hearing this story. We’ve been joking that we’re heading into idiocracy. Now it looks like it’s becoming more and more true

A mechanical engineering course I took, first year engineeering, STATICS, and next term it was DYNAMICS .. most students failed the tests badly .. average mark around 30%. I don't know how the marks were dealt with, most of the class was failing. This created an intense psychological pressure in the class, especially cuz it was 1st year. My study habits weren't the best in first year, but almost everyone had very little understanding of what was going on, unlike any other course I ever took .. It never occurred to me then that maybe the subject was badly-taught--everybody was simply stunned--but now I feel that something was really off ..

Ana, you are exactly right. If you spend considerable time studying something, but still do not understand, are you cut out for the job for which the class is required? I do not want someone who does not understand organic chemistry to be my doctor. I also do not want someone who does not understand organic chemistry to be responsible for designing a chemical plant in which those organic reactions will take place. Not everyone is capable of being a doctor or a chemical engineer.

When I was attempting to pursue higher education I bombed out. The reason for that failure was bad study habits. It wasn't the front part of the studying, it was the part where I was expected to do the part that would show that I had read and understood the assigned chapter or whatever was assigned. My shortcoming was that I didn't want to do the work that would show that I had learned the stuff, but those kids need to take some personal responsibility like I did rather than blaming the professor.

Unfortunately, education today is fast being reduced to a consumer product. Some students expect good grades without studying for it as they think they are "buying" a degree with their tuition. They don't realize that getting a good grade without any knowledge is useless to them in their careers and a disservice to society. Administrators in colleges and universities don't seem to care as long as the enrolments are high and they are getting their bonuses and promotions. Professors who are imparting good education are the ones crushed in between the two groups. Ultimately what will happen if this continues is universities will become degree selling bodies, professors will just hand out grades as not doing otherwise will get them fired, and it is the students (ironically) who will pay the price by failing not in the courses, but later on in life. Parents will also fail as their money did no good to their son or daughter. Hopefully the parents, students, and administrators realize this before it is too late.

Why are they even in college

I spent some time teaching K-12 ad have many friends in higher education and starting about fifteen years ago, I've been hearing the same things from these instructors/adjunct professors and professors; "Students get dumber each year." It's not the professor's fault, it's the quality of student. This (really-bad-for-America) situation has already brought down the national IQ from 100 to 99. There is no doubt we as a nation are indeed getting dumber by the minute. These students are exhibiting the (non) life-skills they didn't get via their terrible-hand-holding parents. If you can't do something, blame those in charge and "demand" their firing. So not looking forward to the future of our nation.

Because they are customers not students

Absolutely disgusting conduct by NYU

I am a physics and engineering lecturer in the UK. OChem is really difficult. There is so much of it. Physics is easy.

Then these crybabies wonder why companies are hiring outside the US.