Worst Professor

Nicolas Triantafyllidis

Aerospace prof, does structures analysis.   Didn't learn a damn thing in his class, all I recall is that his exam questions were graded either 100%, 50%, or 0.   First midterm was 2 questions and the average grade/score turned out to be 25%.

I also remember someone asking him, during class,  to give an example of how to apply a theory; he just turned around and said "when you do your homework, there is an example."

Jerk.

PS:  I see some things never change:  http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/ShowRatings.jsp?tid=679876

L. Rowell Huesmann for Psych 481 was awful.

Don't get me wrong -- his research is incredibly interesting, is nationally renowned, etc, but good lord, this guy does not know how to teach an undergraduate course worth a damn, and his exams are a nightmare in that "either answer could be correct" sort of way. 

That class was graded on a hard curve, and I somehow lucked out with an A, regardless.  And yes, to you engineering nerds, I do realize I'm talking about a Psych course.  It was still a pain in the ass, so there.

Most of her answers for questions came from Google. Had no idea about 95% of the course content.

Do Dearborn professors count? Herb Kaufman for Digital Systems and another CE class I'm drawing a blank on.

http://www.engin.umd.umich.edu/ECE/faculty/extended.php?p_id=172

The guy is/was a pushover- not sure it was possible to get worse than a B in his classes- and he progressed incredibly slowly through the material.

I hated Mary Lou Dorf for EECS 183. Some of it was me being terrible at programming, but it's intro to elementary programming that I needed for my major. She knew what she was talking about, but the GSIs were more helpful than she was. Her slideshows were not helpful. Plus if you asked a question that might seem obvious to her she would make you feel like an idiot. Put that all together with her amazingly annoying voice and you've got yourself one bad teacher. My guess is that people who have some knowledge about programming don't mind the class, but I didn't have much experience and I hated it.

On the other hand, I am taking AMCULT 219 with Bruce Conforth, and I would highly recommend to take any one of his classes if you have the chance. It's "A Survey of American Folklore" which might not sound interesting, but it is. And even if it really isn't, he makes it interesting and fun. Just a great guy overall. I feel like I'm on rate my professors right now.

I couldn't resist. What a great thread. Had a lot of fun reading it (and a flood of bad memories!) even though I didn't attend classes at U-M.

Miami University, 1995-96: Professor Jeanne Hey, International Studies. I had to take an ITS course to satisfy the "Miami Plan," a liberal education requirement that also included a foreign language. Fine, I said, I'll take Intro to International Studies. Mistake. Here's what Professor Hey did (who was very pregnant at the time): We had class scheduled on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 1:15 PM. Quite often throughout the semester, I would say at least 4 or 5 times, Hey would cancel one (or both) classes for the week and tell us that we had to attend a lecture at the campus art museum -- and these lectures would always be in the evenings, usually 7 PM or so.

I was taking an LSAT prep class at the time, and paying good money -- my OWN -- to do so. Guess when it met? Around 7 PM. I told Hey this, and her response -- so help me God, I'll never forget this -- was, "Well, that's your problem. You'll have to work that out yourself." I told her, "I didn't sign up to take this class at 7 PM; I signed up to take it at 1:15." It was like talking to a brick wall.

I went to my LSAT prep classes rather than these lectures, needless to say. OK...we get to final exam time. I'm taking this class Pass/Fail, by the way, so I believe that all I needed, if I recall correctly, was a C. The final exam consisted, by my estimate -- and judging from the groans around me the estimates of many others -- 75% of material culled SOLELY from these 7 PM lecture sessions. Seriously.

So, flash forward to when I received my semester grades. I had failed. This was an absolutely crucial time for me, as I had taken, and done very well on, the LSAT, and I had been accepted into the Toledo College of Law -- but everything was dependent upon my final undergrad credits. And I needed this credit to graduate. I vividly recall just about losing at this time. I recall a heated exchange of e-mail and phone calls with Professor Hey, and I found out during this time that the difference between my Pass/Fail was TWO POINTS on the final exam. Feeling desperate, and feeling incredibly wronged, I brought the Dean of the Arts & Sciences school into the mix, and had several phone calls and an in-person meeting. He took my side, and offered to speak to Professor Hey.

I have no idea what was said between the two, exactly, but the final remedy was this -- I would have to attend some after-hours lecture (oh, the irony!) on South American artists, and Hey said that it would be good for the two points I needed to pass the course. She was at this lecture, too, and I'm sure she felt every one of my cold icy stares of death from across the room...

I won't name the prof since I can't remember his name. It's been ~20 years since I had the class, plus he's dead. Why was he the worst? He was about 90 years old, spent most of class time talking about his boat, and smoked about 3 packs a day. He was exhibit A for the case against tenure. Going to office hours was worthless because of the mumbled answers and the cigarette smoke. He gave me an incomplete for the course because he forgot to record my final exam score. 6 months later, he gave me a C. So I showed him my exams and homework, and 6 months after that the C was changed to a B-. About a year after that, he died, making me feel like crap for cursing him out for 2 years. But I'm not bitter or anything like that.

Richard Scott, Mechanical Engineering Department.  WAY TOO OLD.  Babbles on about nothing