#dear professors

[yarn-ace]

Dear professors,

I know active voice is better for formal papers. However, I have anxiety and don’t like sounding accusatory unless I mean it, which I typically don’t in formal papers. So, you will rip my passive voice sentences from my cold dead fingers 😡.

Sincerely,

A Student

[one-of-americas-suitehearts]

An open letter to professors everywhere:

Dear professors, 

We need to talk about one quick thing: your syllabi.  Here's the thing, you guys don't seem to understand something about syllabi, and that is that pretty much all of you are making them wrong.  Here's a quick outline for you.  

1.  If your syllabus exceeds 10 pages, it's too long. 2.  If your syllabus has a table of contents, leave.  You just need to stop and leave.  Why is your syllabus long enough to require a table of contents?  This is not a book, this is a BASIC outline of a college course.  Get over yourself. 3.  If you have any color on your syllabus, stop.  You don't need color.  Black and white works out just fine. 4.  If you expect your students to print out your syllabus but then have open links on it, why? 5.  If you don't have even a basic calendar on your syllabus...why? 6.  Why is your syllabus not written in a standard font? 7.  If you don't have your syllabus prepared by the first day of class, what's the point? 8.  PROFESSOR IN THE BACK WHY DON'T YOU HAVE A SYLLABUS?  A SYLLABUS IS REQUIRED BY YOUR JOB! 9. Your syllabus just needs the basics.  Honestly, that's it.  Stop going into crazy detail with it.  We don't care. 10.  For real though, can't stress this enough, stop making super long syllabi.  It really doesn't need to be any more than 10 pages.  We get it, you like to read your own writing, but your students aren't going to read all of it anyway and you're just wasting everyone's time, paper, and ink.  

Sincerely, Frustrated students everywhere.  

[technologicalnoiz]

Dear Professors

Dear Professors.... 

I know you like to give college students test and papers, especially for the last few weeks of classes. But would it be so hard to coordinate with one another so that we are not slammed and drowning in work for every class?

Sincerely,

Your Sleep Deprived Students

[ask-kaliqueabrasax-blog]

--

[cynic-in-denial]

Dear professors - I do care!

Dear professors,

Thank you for teaching me, but understand, that I, much like you need to work.

This semester when the school, yet again, did not provide enough spaces and enough lab sections for one of the classes that many of the students require to graduate, the professor essentially told the students in one lab section switch or be switched.  When I told her that I selected the Monday section of the lab over a Friday one so that I may work a second job, she told me school comes first.  Yes, school does come first, which is why I selected a section that would allow me to get a second job to help pay to attend school.

Last fall one professor spent a good five minutes telling our class how disappointed in us he was for having not attended a lecture on sustainability that one of the organizations on campus brought in.  He said that he was disgusted that there were more members of the community there than students.  Now, he had never mentioned this lecture, never said that he would have liked for us to go, and when one of the other students, one of my coworkers, raised her hand to say that she had work, he, again, said that school comes first.  She works hard in school, but she also has to work three jobs to be able to actually attend school.

Tuition alone at our school is $15,883 per semester. This does not include our $100 student activity fee (that we must pay regardless of our participation in these activities) and $930 "comprehensive fee" which is listed as "supporting student activities, campus technology, student facilities improvements and experiential learning activities."  So we already have an additional $1,030 we must pay.  Bringing the total to $16,913.

Minimum wage in Pennsylvania is $7.25, so, let's just see how many hours somebody must work to be able to pay for one semester, shall we?  $16913/$7.25=2,332.83 hours, or 97 days (ignoring tax).  If you are working at minimum wage, it would take a full three months working 24/7 to pay for just the barest of minimum!  Residents also have a minimum of $2,745 to pay for dorms (Close to $3000 to share a small room and have a communal bathroom!) and $3,243 for the least expensive meal plan.  That's an additional $5,988, or 825.93 hours - 34 days.  You would have to work another full month to be able to live on campus.  These fees are only for one semester, too!  For a year, it would add up to $45,802 - 263 days at minimum wage.

According to CollegeCalc (x), once financial aid has been applied the average student pays $24,572 per year.  Much better than the nearly $46 thousand.  But when the average loan amount is $6,825 per year, the interest adds up.

Our school boasts the amount of students who have acquired internships (perhaps due to our school requiring students to have about 500 hours of work before graduating - hours are depending on year/major).  Close to half of internships are unpaid (x).  This summer I am giving up my normal income of around $1,500 in order to take an unpaid, full-time, internship for ten weeks.  If I did not receive a scholarship I would have had to spend that amount on housing and food.  Regardless, though, I am still losing the money that I am not making!

If you question how much I care about school, please, look at what I do.  I have had above a 3.5 every semester here.  I am graduating in three years (whether you like it or not).  I am secretary of an honors society.  I work part time on campus in a leadership position.  I do care.  I am responsible.  And I need more money.

Yes, many of us receive financial aid, but the days of being able to work your way through college are long gone, and if I one more of you tells me that school comes before work I will gladly inform you that this is no longer the case.  They come hand-in-hand.

[back-on-my-bullsh-again]

Dear professors, Stop reminding me how many weeks are left in the semester. I know. Trust me, I know. I'm graduating and stressing out because I'm getting out of here and doing nothing of worth with my degree. Thanks, A soon to be college graduate with no prospects

[hubstep-blog]

New Song 

Dear Professors (Eliminate Remix) 

The Deans List

[sumofmylife]

The more you say, the less people remember.

FeNelon, Francois