First week at UCSD is pretty standard in most classes. Two things are certain ‹ fluctuations in class population and the obligatory distribution of the syllabus.
We’re all familiar with that outline of the class: the rip-off required books, exam dates and percentages. Not to mention the time and place of the professor’s office hours. It’s safe to say that the latter is the item that most students care about least. Sure, some students take note of office hours, but not with much intention of going to them, except right before or after exams. Even then, they only go with utter desperation.
It is possible to get personal with those specks with microphones in front of the lecture hall, also known as professors. I don’t know about you, but the most repeated piece of advice about college I’ve received from student and college life guidebooks alike is to go to office hours. The number of times I’ve heard professors literally yearn for students to come has accumulated to the point where it has become almost cliché.
Why, oh, why, then, do so many professors sit in their offices, like people waiting for a blind date, expectant but unsure of anyone showing up at all? If we are to continue with this analogy, when that person does show up, what are their intentions? A person on a blind date very likely is just looking for someone to satisfy his or her own interests.
Likewise, perhaps many students who do venture into the offices of their professors seek to nurture a relationship only to garner convincing recommendations for grad school, med school, jobs or what have you. I wonder if professors have any problems with this kind of blatant, if superficial, intention. Or are they just glad at all to be able to talk to someone during a mandated hour per week?
Undergraduate teaching is just a small segment of a professor’s spate of responsibilities. One could argue that the true heart of academia is an unyielding commitment to research and publication. This demonstrates a number of things: First, office hours may just seem like something of a minor chore to professors (I could be wrong, of course). Secondly, the people who teach us are most likely somewhere between outrageously bright and merely brilliant, and often at the forefront of their fields. Therefore, it would mean that talking to professors would be of great benefit to us lowly students that are barely beginning to understand the complexities of learning. And thirdly, students may be intimidated by the sheer brainpower and stature of professors. They always did seem somewhat otherworldly, to me at least.
Prior to this column, I’d only gone once to office hours in the two years and a few weeks I’ve been at UCSD. That instance was to pick up a midterm, and I did get into an interesting conversation about the Bible with my professor. But mostly, I didn’t go because I never felt the need or desire to and it seemed awfully intimidating. My professors often would advertise their office hours more than once and some of them even sounded desperate, pleading for people to come to talk about anything ‹ sports, movies, pets. I guess I started feeling bad because here was this awesome opportunity to talk to such learned individuals, to gain invaluable knowledge from people that know the material better than I know myself, to uncover a personal facet of a largely impersonal education ‹ and I wasn’t taking advantage of it. It became a sort of evanescent guilt; I’d glumly note the hours in my agenda notebook, knowing full well I never would go, but feeling somehow that making an extra note of it would alleviate my conscience.
I finally went last week. My professor from one of my political science classes appealed to us more than once, and I heard that as my calling to take a leap of faith and go. Not to mention, I needed to see what an “”office hour”” really was like for the sake of this column. So I walked to Social Sciences Building and strolled down to his office, all the while feeling like I was in line for a dentist’s appointment. Perhaps it was because I didn’t really have a question about the material, and thus no real reason to go. “”Awkward”” is the key word here. I awkwardly sat down and asked him some lame question I had prepared in my head on the way there about what news shows he watched.
After he answered that question in length, there was about a five second awkward pause, and then I launched into another question about his news consumption. Then I resorted to my fallback topic ‹ the midterm. Well there’s an inquiry I’m sure tons of students bring to the table. Then I talked to him about his research, and how his life was as a professor. I stated that I was interested in a career in academia, which was a half-truth, but a good conversation-extender. I even asked him what he thought about office hours and his take on why more students didn’t take advantage of them. At the end of the 20 minutes or so, I shook his hand and dawdled out of there as awkwardly as when I walked in.
I don’t necessarily advocate going to office hours if you have absolutely nothing to say; Professors aren’t going to start asking you questions if you show up. However, as awkward as my experience was, I was glad to have been able to see things from a professor’s perspective for once. As out-of-reach as most professors seem, they inevitably become more human when you actually talk to them. Having a professor recognize you as more than a face in a crowd and knowing your name is actually a good thing, unless you’re the type that skips three-fourths of your classes and is obnoxious during the ones you actually attend. In that case, office hours probably are the furthest thing from your mind.
Student-faculty relations seem to be relatively unchanging, with a handful taking total advantage of the knowledge and resources professors possess, another handful completely disregarding their professors as anything but information-spewing drones in front of the classroom, and with the majority somewhere in between.
Programs such as faculty mentor programs, in which students have the opportunity to act as research assistants to professors, can help bridge the gap between students and the Ivory Tower. Yet in most cases, it is entirely up to the student to determine the degree of interaction he or she wants to have with those brainy teachers. It is likely that striking up a conversation with a professor can only do good; not only for better recommendations but for contributing to a multi-dimensional education that exists beyond bluebooks and lectures.
Amidst the ivory towers that dot the land, it’s important to realize that behind every complex theory, groundbreaking publication and stacks of research, there are human faces that truly enjoy their work and are available to share with others.
They’re in an office near you.
