Professors: They Can Make or Break You

I am currently taking my last two required classes for school: Statistics and Family Finance. Yes, I saved the math courses for last, but that's mainly because I wanted to make sure I could fit them in a schedule before student teaching. Both were offered fairly frequently every semester, so I figured I'd save them for when I had space to fill at any given time for a semester. As it turns out, all my other classes worked out, so there was no need!

A lot goes into my statistics class. I have quizzes 6 days of the week, have done 2 writing assignments, taken two tests and I have one more this weekend... oh and then there's the final at the end of the term. Believe it or not though, I've enjoyed stats. It's less mathy than a lot of other classes. It's mostly reading graphs and interpreting data, which can sometimes be really confusing, but I can usually figure it out. The way the class is organized is well done, so that I can try four times on each quiz and only the best score will be taken. Every time I take a quiz, I review what I got wrong so I can remember it and answer a similar question right for the next quiz, etc. etc. What also helps is that fact that my professor is rather personable, despite the fact that there are about 130 students in my class. He tells stories, makes jokes, and has a voice that's entertaining to listen to. When he puts emphasis on words, it ends up sounding like a growl, kinda like when a pirate speaks. So, long story short, I don't mind this class that I was dreading taking before.

Now, family finance is a different story. The information I've learned is highly applicable, yes. Budgeting, filing taxes, insurance, and buying a house are just a few things we've discussed and learned how to calculate. All this stuff is pretty complex, and frankly, I don't like it. It also doesn't help that my professor is old, speaks really shakily and slowly, and sometimes forgets what equation he's using on the current problem. Class feels like a waste of time, because I show up and we do the homework. I don't actually learn anything... I can do a better job myself just from reading the information in our workbook then going to the TA lab for help on homework problems. Usually before signing up for a class I look up the professors on RateMyProfessor but unfortunately, my professor was the only one teaching for the summer term.

Through my 4 years of college I've struggled with some teachers, and excelled with others. It's a hit and miss kind of a deal, but in the long run I know it's up to me to get the work done no matter what. And the fact that I've gotten thus far, having never failed a class I might add, I grown to feel more confident in my abilities. :)