The Black Sheep
FR GR EE.. AN . LI DM KE A THE GI VE AD S Y VIC OU E Y ON OU SE R X.
• A COLLEGE NEWSPAPER THAT’S ACTUALLY ABOUT COLLEGE •
Volume 2, Issue 2 • 1/17/13 - 1/23/13
theblacksheeponline.com @blacksheepUTK
CATEGORIZING YOUR PROFESSORS LINDSEY FLECK WROTE THIS
A new semester means a new set of teachers. Professors can range from uptight bitches who’ve toiled their lives away in the world of academia, to the laid back ex-hippies. Either way, most professors fall somewhere in the middle of that spectrum, and here are a few you may run into this semester. The Cute Elderly: Don’t you just love it when on the first day the teacher wobbles in with a sweet little smile? These guys are clearly experienced and most of the time are good teachers. Granted, they know their shit and won’t put up with your idiotic questions, but it’s one of those giveand-take relationships that makes going to class worth it. Besides, these guys have been around forever so they know all the cool things that have happened in the world, and the cherry on the top is that since they are elderly they have license to say whatever the hell they feel like saying, and we can’t do anything about it. The ancient Greeks were right in having little boys for sex slaves? Whatever you say, Prof! The Grad Student/New Teacher: These two are pretty similar in that they either try to come across as a hard ass so they won’t be taken advantage of, or they act nice, like they want to be your friend. Either way they are new and easy to ignore, the only downside is that they can fight back with super hard tests and unfair grading. The Dispassionate Teacher: UT is a research school, and some teachers are here primarily because they want funding for their research and couldn’t care less about us poor students. These wonderful people just teach because it’s what the school tells them to do, and frankly they have no business teaching. They’d rather be in the lab than giving lip service to a bunch of hung over 22-year-olds, so they don’t put much effort into teaching in the first place. But you can be damn sure they’ll yell when the whole class fails their tests, making them look bad in the eyes of Grand Master Joe DiPietro. You can try all you want, but you can forget about asking for a 1 point boost to get you from a C+ to a B, because these bastards take pride in crushing less-educated blowhards like yourself. The Foreigner: There may be some fascination with an exotic teacher from another country, but unless they have been in America for about a decade, there’s a good chance you can’t understand their thick accent of [insert random country here.] Sure, ogling at them is all fun and games, but unfortunately you can’t pass a class unless you actually learn what they’re teaching. The Department Head: These professors are the worst because they believe they are giving students a gift for bothering to teach them instead of doing whatever it is department heads do. These guys have power over the other teachers in their little community and they definitely abuse it. Half of lecture is taken up by them talking about their own achievements, and the other half with making sure you know you’ll never be as good as them.
The Not So Funny Ones: These are the ones that make lecture even more awkward and depressing when they tell their “super funny” jokes. Instead of learning whatever they should be teaching, you sit in class feeling sorry for the poor sap who loves the fact that a pirate’s favorite amino acid is Arrrrrrginine. Sorry, but we’re actually paying for an education, not to be an unwilling audience for your terrible standup career. The Overly Enthusiastic Guy: This is the guy that is always happy and tries to make the most boring subject in the world interesting and fun. He even knows you’re only in the class because it’s required, but that doesn’t make him any less enthusiastic. Instead, you are a challenge and he feels obligated to make you feel as passionate about the class as he is. The good thing about overly enthusiastic guys is that they know students will be more fond of their subject if they pass, so he offers us a lot of extra credit. The One Who Knows No Boundaries: There is a line between what
we want to know about our teacher and what we don’t want to know. If you’re a sexy teacher, sure we’d appreciate knowing your relationship status - but we don’t need to know all the details like how Macbeth reminds you of the time you caught your bitch ex-wife in bed with another guy and now you’re broke because UT doesn’t pay you enough to cover the alimony. Look, we have 3 hours a week to learn shit, so unless your dark history of porn addiction is going to be on the test, please stick to the syllabus. You’ll run into all kinds of different teachers this semester. Some may be a mix of the two above (like an overly-enthusiastic foreign TA who is tragically unable to teach what she loves), and some might just be crotchety old men who stumble into class if only to keep collecting pay checks. But appreciate these different professor personalities, because they don’t differ much from the personalities you’ll find outside of academia, and God-willing, you’re going to fall into one of these categories some day as well.
what'’s inside HOW TO OVERCOME SPRING’S #UTPROBZ
TOP 10 EARLY SIGNS YOU SHOULD ABANDON A PROFESSOR
WE INTERVIEW: RYAN NORTH
A NEW SEMESTER MEANS NEW PROBLEMS TO COMPLAIN ABOUT ON TWITTER.
BECAUSE CHANGING YOUR MAJOR ISN’T AS HARD AS IT SHOULD BE.
WE GOT TO CHAT WITH CREATOR OF THE ONLINE DINOSAUR COMICS, AND SELF-DESCRIBED “FINAL BOSS OF THE INTERNET.”
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