To start off the year, I got to take a several month break from my graduate school program, which allowed me to use some of the free time to clean up my backlog of tasks and by extension recover from my burnout. However, returning to school again, really highlights how some classes have been great and others have made me question why I continue in this program.
What really decides if a class is good or not is the teacher. One of my teachers spent the first week of the semester talking about how great they are and selling using the software that the company they work for produces over other common tools such as excel or Tableau which other classes in the program use. This overall leads to a bad taste for the class, as the tool itself is getting sold to me instead of showing me what the tool can do. The focus on this tool, also means that I do not understand the basic concepts of how to do the same tasks without the tool. Most classes up to this point have shown how to do the concept in excel, teaching the basics of how a process works using a that almost all companies have access to and then how another tool could help do the job faster for an added cost.
It add on to this, the teacher talks as if the students are not adults or already have a full time job; which to get into the program, most of us have had to show our resume talking about our work experience and how we expect this program to help grow our professional lives. This shows that the teacher does not understand their audience.
The final thing I will say on the teacher is that they do not admit when wrong or clarify poorly worded questions when asked, instead choosing to place the blame back on the student.
It is sad how a few really bad teachers like this taint the perception of the whole program. I have had many good teachers that were always happy to talk or clarify the content with the goal of helping the student learn the content so they can use it.
I generally don’t like taking the negative view of things – so forgive this rant.