CS Professor, a coding genius but has a overinflated ego. He has a couple favs but treats everyone else in class like trash. It’s always “his way is the best way”.
Never responds to my emails on time. For a couple graded projects, his non response resulted in me not being able to complete my work. And he is very strict about grading, would give 0 on a project for a single line mistake.
If I reach out after class he’s always like “email me”.
So I sent him this email today (in a long thread):
*I don’t know the inner mechanisms of GH classroom, I couldn’t figure out access to that specific repo. I tried when you had Rainfall V going on and asked for help. No response. I didn’t wanna make you mad when you control my grades (not concerned right now).*
*Except to your favorite few, you just come off as unwilling to help sometimes. Maybe even condescending. I don’t draw this conclusion from a single event, rather this is from my observations last year and current.*
AITA for calling him out? How likely am I gonna get in trouble?
NTA – sounds like you made the effort to reach out in class and in his preferred method and still got brushed off. I’d print off the questions and at the end of class try to ask again and if he gives you the “email me” response say “I did.. but you didn’t reply..” then give him the proof. If there is any fall out let the school admins know and give them all the proof. Sounds like a shitty situation.. I’ve been there too and barely got through the class. Good luck!
Viking gave you good advice. Just be sure that you have everything in order before you see him again. Because he will push back if he has that kind of ego.
I would also recommend that you keep any future conversations and emails very formal and very polite. The reason I say this is because if you have to take this to the administration you don’t want to come off as the one who’s the problem.
NTA.
I don’t think this was the way to handle your issue though. If your class doesn’t have a class representative, it would be better to go through whoever is the dean or director of undergraduate studies. A neutral individual outside the classroom might be better placed to resolve the issues which are arising here. For example the issue with not responding to emails regarding assessments. A neutral party could see if there has been crossed wires in respect to the amount of information students require to complete the assessment or the amount of hands on support which is feasible to offer students.
I do think that your email does come across as a little bit rude and terse. While you might feel annoyed about what is happening, you should always write as though other people will be reading your emails and drawing conclusions.
NTA! Great way to get your point across when calling out favouritism! He may not realize that that’s the way that he comes off!
NTA. However, if you want to get actions done, that is not the way. Sending an email won’t do anything except harm to you. Now he got written proof of you being potentially rude, but do you have that for him?
I would collect written evidence and report him to the higher ups. Whether thats the chair, the dean, etc is up to you.
NTA for addressing the problem but you would probably be better off reaching out to someone like an academic advisor or D.U.S. (someone who is also part of the faculty/staff who can advocate for you). It is also worth noting that when you are sending emails in a professional capacity that you should try to use proper spelling and grammar (i.e. “I did not want to make you mad” as opposed to “I didn’t wanna”).
I understand your frustration, but sending an email like that is not going to do you any favors, it makes you look bad, sorry. Just like there are egotistical professors that play favorites, there are also entitled students who need to be spoon-fed every piece of information.
ESH – I wouldn’t have sent it, personally.
Some tutor and professors are deliberately harsh, so if you ever get a job in that field, you won’t feel as thrown in the deep end as much.
I do have professional experience and that’s true. Software engineers can be egocentric assholes. But it feels different when you’re trying to learn and face these obstacles, I am used to professors being nice even the harsh graders.
Yeah, I once had a CS prof who’s policy was that anything less than 90% was basically failing and his grades were not in the syllabus, they were in an obscure corner of D2L hidden I think 3 or 4 folders down.. He couldn’t \*actually\* give us an F for reasonable work, but if your work was 50-89%, you got a D, 90-93% was C, 94-96% was B and only 97%+ was an A. I tried talking to him when my first assignment got 80% but had a huge D on it. He told me he could do what he wanted, it was his class. His department chair agreed with him. I dropped the class.
My take away was that CS departments are filled with… let’s call it harshness to not get banned…and everything I’ve ever seen since bears that out.
Dude, office hours 🤦♂️
Your not the asshole here. Your professor is, as you said, clearly showing favoritism, and even going as far as to disregard the students outside of the group he favors. Your email, on the other hand, is aggressive and will most likely make him even less willing to help you since you called him out. if you can, I’d suggest maybe reporting this to the school, because this professor isn’t doing their job right. Teachers should be willing to help all students, not just a select few.
ngl you just gave your professor a written receipt that he can take straight to the dean if he wants to destroy you
ok so real talk, i had a professor exactly like this in my data structures class. same energy, same favorites, same “email me” bullshit. you know what i did? i started cc’ing the department head on every single email after the second time he ignored me. suddenly professor genius boy could respond within 24 hours, funny how that works
but here’s the thing everyone’s missing – you literally told him “i’m not concerned about retaliation right now because you control my grades” which is basically academic suicide. that line right there? thats him realizing you see the power dynamic clearly, which makes him look bad and gives him motivation to prove you right about that power
the brutal truth is you’re 100% right about everything you said but being right doesn’t protect your gpa. cs professors have egos more fragile than wet toilet paper and this dude is probably screenshot your email to show other faculty how “disrespectful students are these days”
should’ve gone to his department head first, built a paper trail of ignored emails, maybe gotten a few classmates to back you up. instead you went nuclear on someone who literally assigns your grades and has tenure
you’re nta for being frustrated but lowkey you just played yourself harder than anyone else could