If it were up to me, there would be no long reading assignments, take-home quizzes, or homework at all. Unfortunately for us college students, the only thing in our control is procrastination. Our future of endless hours of reading and studying is left in the hands of our professors, but what makes this fate a little more withstandable is a good professor. So these are all the things you should do to be a good professor.
Step 1: Bribe all your students to like you by bringing them homemade cookies. Hungry college students love anything homemade. One of my favorite professors brought his sister to lecture one day. She brought cookies.
Step 2: Believe in your students with all your heart. I will admit, after the sixth email of “Dear Professor, I’m sorry I can’t make it to class today. I’m not feeling well,” I would have a hard time even believing myself. In actuality, the professors who believe in you when you can’t even believe in yourself are the real heroes of this campus. 99.99 percent of the time I had no idea what was going on in my chemistry lectures, and my professor continuously cheered me on the entire way.
Step 3: Conduct experiments with or on your students. My professor stole my banana once, he freeze-dried it in class and then broke it in half. I have never understood a lecture as much as I did that day. Chemistry has never made more sense when talking about bananas.
Step 4: DO NOT HAVE EXAMS ON MONDAY.
Step 5: Start every class with a grand entrance, dad joke, happiness homework, or anything your mind can dream of.
The best professors create relationships with you. They listen to your stupid stories about fish and call you a dummy when you get a question wrong on an exam that they know you knew. They bring you snacks or bring their sister to lecture so she can bring you snacks, and they believe in your capability of chemical nomenclature. They encourage you, write an annoying amount of letters of recommendation, and make you smile.
Brooke Ellis is from Eden Prairie, Minn.
Her major is undeclared.
