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Comment by acbart | Hacker News Reader

> without bothering the professor

What the hell kind of academic culture is this? Maybe in graduate research, if I expected a research assistant to know how to do a task... but certainly not true in an undergraduate course! If they can't do the assignment, that is the perfect time for them to come to me and learn from me how to do the assignment. That's like, the whole point of my job as a teacher is to help people learn. Yes, I make assignments too, and people underestimate how difficult that part of the job is, but helping people figure things out is like my #1 job. It's sad to hear that your experiences (and apparently many other commenters) are something very different?

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> That's like, the whole point of my job as a teacher is to help people learn.

Many professors see teaching as a distraction from their real job, research, not an adjunct to it.

Could it be because you lose your professor job is in peril if you don't get research funding? Survival explains so much.

This resonates with me, I had a real mixed bag when I was doing my undegrad degree. There were some incredible professors who wanted to teach, were very approachable, and would always make time and reply to emails with good detail. Then there were other professors who clearly only had their open office hours because they had to, would rarely reply to emails, and the moment you stepped into their office it was clear their top priority was getting you to leave.

This is getting off topic, but I'd love to see a fundamental rethink in how 'teachers' for undergrad courses are hired. Certainly for year 1 and 2 courses the 'teachers' should be selected and hired ~100% based on their pedagogical skills and passion and ~0% based on the impact of their publications. Universities also need to start recognizing, valuing and rewarding teaching ability.

The best first year math lecturer I had at university (and the person that is the reason I ended up majoring in math) didn't get tenure and ended up taking a job a smaller 'unprestigious' local college. The by far the worst lecturer I had is now at MIT.

In my uni in Poland, had I asked teacher for help, I'd be at best laughed at. Homework/assignment is graded and it is fully expected that student does it all by themself.

And if you have questions, it is fully expected of you to just study harder and check for the question in books.

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