By: Gabrielle McLaren
Obviously, while making your schedule you had ratemyprofessors.com open in another tab, but you’ve been burned by inadequate reviews before — and there is nothing more important to a successful semester than knowing your profs. The only person you can trust to correctly assess the situation and interpret key visual cues is yourself.
Your prof’s aesthetic
Backpack
Your professor understands that a two-inch binder full of notes and three textbooks for the three back-to-back classes they teach will maim their spines. They are the practical sort, and that’s invaluable. A practical prof is the sort who accepts projects emailed and not printed — and they care more about your project than your bibliography. Amen!
Scarf
A professor wearing a scarf can mean many things, depending largely on how the scarf is tied. Are we talking a gigantic cape-like roll of fabric with an elaborate print that goes from their shoulders to the floor? Did they pull off an intricate knot? Are we talking about a tiny square tied around their neck which makes them look like an extra in a movie about France made by Americans? Does the scarf match their shoes? Does it?
Either way, if your prof is wearing a scarf, it means that they are ready for the day. They took the time to get organized, get cute, and show up. They’ll expect the same from you.
Coffee
Good. Your professor is also dead inside. This counts as a double (or double-double?) if it’s an afternoon class.
What are the TAs doing?
No TAs
A professor with no teaching assistants is a dangerous professor. Not only are they talking to you about a subject assigned by their department which may or may not interest them, but they are doing all their correcting alone. That, or this professor is feeling this class, doesn’t want to share any of its glory with some insomniac master’s student, and you better deliver — because you’ll be answering directly to them, and they will know your name.
Nervous TAs
Listen, if your TAs are fluttering about your professor nervously and twitching to help or answer the random questions your professor sometimes flings their way, you’re in for it. If your prof instills the fear of God in PhD candidates, you, the puny small undergraduate that you are, should be quivering in your squeaky plastic seat.
Your prof’s visual aids
Powerpoint
Your professor is no-nonsense and classic. However, don’t assume you’re out of the woods yet. This PowerPoint may be a clusterfuck of size eight font passages from your textbook, a gallery of pictures, or actually helpful. And even then, it may never end up on Canvas where it can be truly helpful.
Prezi
Your professor has invested a whole lot of time and energy into this visual aid. Pay fucking attention to it, or their wrath will be unleashed. That, or they’re trying to age down and will also be saying ‘lol’ and using memes. Brace yourself, it’s hard to tell which is worst.
Projector
Your first instinct may be to laugh, because holy shit, my prof is outdated! Fair, but pause to consider that SFU no longer procures projectors and only a few select classes are still equipped with them. That means there’s a very real chance that your professor either systematically bullies the administration into giving them one of three rooms with a projector, or they have brought their own. Both exhibitions of pure willpower are frightening, therefore be frightened.
None
Run. In this class, we die like men.
