professors gone rogue (ToT)【 warning: rant, tmi 】

okay so listen. i get it. university is supposed to be challenging. it's not supposed to be easy. but there is a fine line between "challenging students to grow" and "terrorizing them into submission like some academic dictator drunk on power." and i am so tired of these professors acting like they're some kind of gods just because they have control over our grades. like CONGRATULATIONS, YOU HAVE A DEGREE. but that does not mean you get to treat students like disposable pawns in your little academic hunger games.

so tell me why in the name of all that is good and sane, do some of these professors think it's okay to just throw students into the deep end and laugh while they drown? oh, you want me to read an article i wrote and then present it for ten full minutes, in another language, with no notes, no sticky notes, no keywords, no powerpoint, no safety net, no NOTHING? and you’re doing this because you "don’t know who wrote it" because of ai???? excuse me???

let’s break this down. you, a university professor, don’t know who wrote what because of ai. okay. fine. reasonable concern. but instead of, idk, talking to students, asking questions, making us explain our thought process like a normal person, your solution is to strip us of every single possible tool and make us stand there for ten minutes trying to recall an entire article from memory? what kind of psychological warfare is this? if i wanted to do a no-equipment endurance challenge, i would audition for a survival show. ㅠㅠ

and the worst part? the absolute worst part? is the way they act like it's normal. like, "oh, it's university! deal with it!" MA'AM. MA'AM. you cannot just drop an academic nuke on my life and expect me to walk it off like some kind of unbothered protagonist in an action movie. like?? i am a student. not an ai chatbot, not a walking encyclopedia, not a contestant in an extreme survival show where the only prize is burnout and debt.

this is what makes me so angry. they don’t even care if we actually learn anything. they just want to see us suffer. like, how is this supposed to help anyone? throwing people into impossible situations doesn't make them smarter, it just makes them anxious and exhausted. and yeah, sure, maybe some people somehow manage to pull it off, but at what cost?? their mental health? their self-confidence? their entire will to live???

and THEN. THEN. to really add insult to injury, she failed every single person in our seminar yesterday because she "didn’t like the way we wrote our feedback." no rubric, no clear instructions, no expectations set. just vibes. how are we supposed to guess what she wants?? i wrote it the way every other professor prefers it, but apparently, that wasn’t good enough. and now, in my second year of university, this is the first time i have ever failed something so absolutely stupid.

but honestly?? in a twisted way, i’m kinda glad this happened. because i wasted my precious time writing that feedback by myself while my group just sat there breathing. like, congrats, y’all got to chill while i was typing away for no reason T.T. so hopefully, next time they actually do something. because i am not about to be free labor again.

oh, but wait, it gets even better. the place where we had to submit the assignments? it broke. twice. i had to convert from pdf to docx or whatever, but nooo, the submission box was just straight-up broken. so guess what? she told us to email it instead. okay, fine. annoying, but whatever. BUT THEN. WHY. WHY AM I HAVING A GROUP OF soggy french fries UP MY FACE SAYING I DIDN’T SEND THEIR FEEDBACK?? like, are y’all serious? am i the professor now? did i suddenly become the university’s IT department? do you think i hacked the submission box to personally ruin your day??? I SENT IT. I KNOW I SENT IT. if the professor didn’t get it, that’s on her and her broken-ass system, not me.

and THEN (because this horror story isn’t over), turns out she actually wanted us to send it a different way. but did she say this clearly? no. no, of course not. she mentioned it briefly, and she didn’t even apply it to the feedback. so imagine my surprise when she suddenly goes, "why send it to me? what am I gonna do with it?" ?????? IDK, MAYBE SO YOU CAN SEE WE ACTUALLY DID THE WORK AND THEN FORWARD IT TO THEM LIKE A NORMAL PERSON??? like ma’am, you’re the professor. specify. write it somewhere. send an email. put it in the syllabus. carve it into stone, i don’t care. JUST TELL ME WHAT TO DO. I HATE FEELING LIKE A FOOL.

i have other things to stress out about. the exam for this course is soon, and i can barely study because i’m stuck dealing with these chaotic seminars. like?? i’m supposed to be focusing on actual learning, but instead, i'm out here navigating through nonsense assignments, miscommunications, and a submission system that’s held together with duct tape and tears. ㅠㅠ

sorry for the rant, guys. but this is a real problem that needs to be fixed. some people have it worse, i know. some don’t even get the chance to defend themselves. some get accused of using ai and can’t even prove their innocence, leading to them getting bullied or even expelled. it’s not okay. this whole ai panic is making professors paranoid, and students are the ones suffering for it.

oh, and to top it all off? my article was brief. but guess what? she wants us to read the full, detailed article. for ten minutes. like, bestie, if you wanted a full reading, MAYBE THAT SHOULD’VE BEEN THE INSTRUCTION FROM THE START. i'm gonna be standing up there, trying to recall details from an article i barely looked at because i wrote about a summary, not a full breakdown. T.T

nah. i'm done. professors like this are the reason students lose their passion for learning. the reason so many of us walk around feeling like failures when it’s really just the system that’s broken. you want students to succeed? try actually supporting them instead of throwing them off a cliff and acting surprised when they don’t fly.