This article was originally published prior to June 2, 2013. Due to a change in the content management systems, the initial publication date in not available. 

Baker claims it wants me to “own confidence.” How am I supposed to “own confidence” when I’m not learning anything from some of the professors teaching my major courses?

During my time at Baker, I’ve taken many courses from many professors in which I learned valuable information and skills that will help me in life and my career, but I’ve also had several courses that I felt I didn’t learn anything from. In the past, this didn’t create many red flags for me since these courses tended to be general education courses.

However, recently, these courses have not been my general education courses. Instead, they are included in my major coursework.

These are classes that I need to be gaining the most knowledge from, yet I walk away feeling like I waste my time because the professors aren’t teaching me anything.

And what’s worse is that, for many of these classes, students have only one choice for a professor, which means their only option is to go to class every day and not learn.

To me, it’s a pretty big issue when multiple students have complained about professors to higher authorities and still nothing is done to remedy the situation. Instead, these students are told it’s not worth it to voice their opinion and that they just need to deal with it, get the class over with and move on.

It’s not like these students are complaining because the teacher is too hard or that they don’t like his or her teaching methods. They are complaining because they aren’t learning anything.

I do not feel prepared to graduate in May and be shoved out into the real world based on the information (or lack thereof) I have learned in some of my major courses. In fact, I plan to continue my education at another college after graduation in order to fill the gaps in my knowledge.

I understand that professors can gain tenure, but tenure should not make professors invincible, especially if they are not performing the job they were tenured to do.

There should be some sort of condition in which after a certain number of semesters during which a professor has received numerous complaints and/or numerous negative student evaluations, they should be put on a kind of academic probation just like students are when they don’t perform up to university expectations.

A professor on probation who can’t get their evaluations up and complaints down in a certain number of semesters should then lose his/her tenure.

The students are Baker’s eyes and ears throughout the rest of the year. Who knows what goes on in the classroom better than us? We should be listened to more and taken more seriously when it comes to issues that affect our education in such a negative way.