NYU Professor Scott Galloway: Ouch

IMO the prof's email was excellent. He conveyed his point across very nicely without showing even a small hint of irritation or annoyance.

The part copied below, for me, really sums it up. This student is an immature jackass and s/he really needs growing up. S/he first made a mistake and then had the audacity of justifying his/her action. Personally I would hate to have a person like that in my team.

Quoted part: Just so I’ve got this straight…you started in one class, left 15-20 minutes into it (stood up, walked out mid-lecture), went to another class (walked in 20 minutes late), left that class (again, presumably, in the middle of the lecture), and then came to my class. At that point (walking in an hour late) I asked you to come to the next class which “bothered” you.

To the folks who are siding with the student: Find out who s/he was, hire him/her and then lets see what your reaction is when the moron walks in late to meetings, customer calls, doesn't deliver on time etc. and then when you fire him/her, sues you..

Making a show out of kicking out late students is self-important. The professor extrapolating from this one event that the student is failing at life and should be thankful this professor set him straight indicates more of that attitude to me.

I've been in classes where a late student was told to leave. It was way more distracting than if he'd just been allowed to sit down because it sets off a bunch of pondering and empathy, and you look around you to see what the other students think about the situation, and you're no longer hearing the teacher talk.

This I have never understood. What does it mean to respect an institution? Is this sort of like corporate personhood (which I am not taking a stance on)? Does Harvard demand more respect than the local community college?

The word "respect" is as loaded as the word "fair." One interpretation is simply, "Don't be rude." But, that's not all that the word commonly encompasses. Implicit in most definitions is the difference in social status between two parties. When is it properly "respectful" to call John Smith by his first name instead of "Mister Smith"? When the person addressing John is socially beneath him?

Sometime early in the semester after the course outline had been presented to her students, my wife received an email in which a student put forward his plan on how he was going to game the course to get a pass with the minimum amount of work. It went something like this:

According to the course outline, I plan to just read the poetry and one of the books. If I do essays 1 on the poetry, essays 3 and 4 comparing the book to the poetry, skip essay 3 and get 50% on the exam then, by my calculations I should get a pass. Could you tell me if this plan will work?

I've heard of time management but I'd never seen such a blatant disregard for actually wanting to learn anything in a course before. It didn't occur to the student that telling a lecturer that her course was just an obstacle course to be rushed through as efficiently as possible was a little disrespectful?

On my master's there are a few people who regularly show up halfway into lectures (leaving the doors swinging and banging), leave work that requires genuine understanding and insight until the last possible second and just generally seem confused by everything. They're intelligent folk, but I don't understand the lack of application at this stage. Why bother coming? It's not like they're starting businesses or fighting crime at night.

I used to be a sloppy student at undergraduate, but for a postgrad degree there's just no point being there unless you want to attack your subject like a rabid dog. Nobody will save you at this point. Nobody cares if you fail.

If anyone here knows him please put in a good word for me.

The part I disagree with is the policy. How is interrupting the class further to turn them away at all helpful? Speak afterwards; you're only turning a minor distraction into a major one. Especially since people who come in late are demonstrating that they are interested enough to arrive and face that glare / lecture, more often in-class than out.

Laziness / shit not together would be far better demonstrated by not going to class at all, but no professors I've encountered take as strong of a stance on that. It's disproportional and insulting to the people who do show up to make a big deal out of it (prior to other attempts to change things), both the late arrivals and the ones who have to sit through the whole fabricated event.

Manners and respect should exist? Absolutely. But that doesn't give professors any additional right to that feeling of entitlement. I've met some real jerks of professors in my time, and they're typically also the worst teachers around. What right do they have to act like that? Oh, right. Tenure (forgive my expletive).

Respect is, and should be, earned. They get a little bonus for being in the teacher role, but for many (note: not saying most, not denying its possibility either) the line "those who cannot do, teach" is true.

In summary: act respectfully. Both of you.

The one side thinks "how rude of the student to walk in and out of lectures like that!" and the other side thinks "what's the big deal? Just ignore it!" and from there they side with the professor or the student, respectively.

Does this gel with your personal experiences? Is there anyone who sided with the professor but does not find student movement distracting? Or anyone who sided with the student but can't stand it?

[1] http://lesswrong.com/lw/dr/generalizing_from_one_example/

Actually, I think the appropriate modus operandi in New York is to sample if you want and if a professor tells you to leave or come back in the next class, then do so. But don't take it personally and e-mail. In Silicon Valley and elsewhere, I think it varies.

Question: A student goes to three classes, each for approximately the same amount of time. He arrives at the third course approximately an hour after the first one started – how long was the student in each of the first two classes?

Professor: 15-20 minutes!

(He mistakenly divided 1 hour by three and tried to account for travel time. Of course he should have divided by two.)

In combination with his grammatical skills, I’d say the Prof needs to get HIS shit together!

But seriously, the student was justified to walk in, but not justified to complain about being thrown out. The Prof's e-mail was bizarre but the closing paragraph was well-spoken.

http://christophervilmar.wordpress.com/2010/02/23/galloway-f...

1) the classroom != business meetings----------- in meetings, other people rely on you being there. in lecture, professor just talks - he can give the same lecture to an empty room or to a full room. it doesn't matter

2) student is not responsible to the professor. ----- because the student's presence is not needed to make an effective lecture, the student has no responsibility to check with the TA or something. his presence is for his benefit alone, his absence is to his damage alone.

3) lecture is not affected by walk-ins and walk-outs ---- no student tries to "make a statement" by walking in late to class. it is not disruptive, if they walk in,find a spot, and sit down, quietly. the lecture is not affected, if they are focused, people hardly notice the door opening. it's like somebody coughing in lecture - who hears it, who remembers it? nobody.

4) professor is wrong to interpret this as deliberate action--- there are a million and one reasons to be late for class or go early. in a large class, a small subset will always have some kind of priority over lecture, be it conflict exams,interviews, small accidents on the way,or lecture sampling. this is completely understandable, the students' lives don't revolve around the lecture.

5) policies should become "strict" after 1st week ---- even if the professor decides to exercise his snobbiness by power of being a lecturer, he should have done so not in the first lecture, but made it clear to the entire class, multiple times during the first week, and started implementing it next week. dismissing the student is such a shallow, "i got the power", type of behavior. extremely disappointing display of insecurity of an NYU MBA professor.

6) urinating? ---- wow the professor goes over his head with his outrageous analogies. no logical sense.

Getting a good job, working long hours, keeping your skills relevant, navigating the politics of an organization, finding a live/work balance…these are all really hard, xxxx. In contrast, respecting institutions, having manners, demonstrating a level of humility…these are all (relatively) easy. Get the easy stuff right xxxx. In and of themselves they will not make you successful. However, not possessing them will hold you back and you will not achieve your potential which, by virtue of you being admitted to Stern, you must have in spades. It’s not too late xxxx…"

Now that is an honest to goodness teacher. xxxx is quite fortunate. She/he may or not may recognize this now, but that letter was such a huge favor.

Really? I always heard that it was better to apologize later than to ask permission first, at least when you're doing something as harmless as entering a classroom with a lecture in progress.

Galloway sounds like a butthurt nitwit who missed his calling as a librarian. He probably isn't, of course, but he certainly doesn't take the high ground in his response to the student's perfectly civil letter.

It's true that many doors open in the business world when you make a habit of being early, but it's also true that many doors open when you show up someplace where you aren't supposed to be at all.