How do professors who went to top schools feel about teaching students at bottom tier colleges?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I love this question! As a former student at two lower-to-medium-tiered state schools, I can tell you the professors that did not have ties to my state were generally incredibly snobby and overall unhappy to be there. On the other hand, it was incredibly inspiring to get to know professors from my state who had gone on to Ivies, worked and taught oversees, had prestigious clerkships and then come back to their home state to teach.

It's a job; a cozy six-figure job with the best benefit package in the world until they croak. It's not altruism.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:David Foster Wallace preferred teaching at Illinois State University to Pomona, where he went after being offered an endowed faculty Chair

What do you expect them to say? "These kids are lazy underachievers, very few actually read the assigned material, plagiarism is rampant, and lectures are like talking to a wall."

These days those are all issues everywhere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:David Foster Wallace preferred teaching at Illinois State University to Pomona, where he went after being offered an endowed faculty Chair

What do you expect them to say? "These kids are lazy underachievers, very few actually read the assigned material, plagiarism is rampant, and lectures are like talking to a wall."

????

[Anonymous]

You really expect a six-figure salary tenured professor to admit on the record they teach at a college full of dummies? I mean come on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You really expect a six-figure salary tenured professor to admit on the record they teach at a college full of dummies? I mean come on.

On the record? What? This is an anonymous forum, not a court of law.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:All the professors I know complain about their students whether they teach at elite universities or open admission colleges.

Generally true. But I think especially those at very expensive private schools with entitled students and then those who perceive they are teaching beneath themselves. Think professor ending up at directional U in a bad weather state and no personal connection to the state - and with the state cutting funds and students who are not prepared.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I love this question! As a former student at two lower-to-medium-tiered state schools, I can tell you the professors that did not have ties to my state were generally incredibly snobby and overall unhappy to be there. On the other hand, it was incredibly inspiring to get to know professors from my state who had gone on to Ivies, worked and taught oversees, had prestigious clerkships and then come back to their home state to teach.

It's a job; a cozy six-figure job with the best benefit package in the world until they croak. It's not altruism.

Tenure is a pipe dream for most aspiring professors today.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I love this question! As a former student at two lower-to-medium-tiered state schools, I can tell you the professors that did not have ties to my state were generally incredibly snobby and overall unhappy to be there. On the other hand, it was incredibly inspiring to get to know professors from my state who had gone on to Ivies, worked and taught oversees, had prestigious clerkships and then come back to their home state to teach.

It's a job; a cozy six-figure job with the best benefit package in the world until they croak. It's not altruism.

Tenure is a pipe dream for most aspiring professors today.

Getting a full-time job period is a pipe dream for most new PhDs, much less a tenure-track job, much less tenure itself.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All the professors I know complain about their students whether they teach at elite universities or open admission colleges.

Generally true. But I think especially those at very expensive private schools with entitled students and then those who perceive they are teaching beneath themselves. Think professor ending up at directional U in a bad weather state and no personal connection to the state - and with the state cutting funds and students who are not prepared.

My friends and family teaching at top tier publics are happiest with their students. Then they complain about their colleagues and administration.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My graduate adviser studied at Princeton and a professor I worked for did graduate studies at UChicago. I went to grad school in a place that most people on DCUM would laugh at. The professors who went to those prestigious schools spent time with me, advised me on my career and life, and occasionally we went out for beers and pizza. If they had some amount of disdain for me because I was attending a bottom tier school, it certainly wasn’t obvious over the handful of years I spent with them.

If I were a professor with credential from a top school, I will find it incredibly rewarding to teach any one at any school. It will be specially meaningful to teach at a lower tier school because the impact of my work would be 1000x than if I were teaching at a Top ranked school.

[Anonymous]

Actually the students themselves aren't frustrating, they are doing the best they know how. It's the university administrators who are frustrating beyond belief.

[Anonymous]

Relative taught at T-14 law school. Did exchanges nationally and internationally. Even as a bit of a snob, he said the top of the class at mid-continent state school was every bit as good as Ivy students. So, yes, maybe not the depth through the class, but still rewarding and interesting. He enjoyed the different settings.

[Anonymous]

A few of things, OP:

- A "regional university" isn't really a thing. Academic jobs are usually classified by their Carnegie classification, which would be R1 (huge doctoral research school), R2, Doctoral Institution, Master's Institution, and so on...

- Professor jobs usually have pretty different expectations based on the institution's Carnegie classification but also on the field. At an R1 you're going to need to get mega-grants and publish, whereas at a Teaching Institution you may not need to engage in a lot of scholarship, especially if you're not on the tenure track. In Organic Chemistry you're gonna need to be getting grants, spending time in a lab, using more grad students, and publishing more, whereas if you are teaching Architecture you might present at conferences and maybe keep a small practice to fulfill your scholarship component. Furthermore, there are tenure-track jobs and non tenure-track jobs (many of which do have promotion and security), and there are different expectations for those, too. All are hard to get, but the point is there are 1,000 types of full-time academics.

- At even the not very selective schools (90% acceptance rate or more) there are going to be VERY good students. At the higher-achieving levels (research assistants, TAs, mentoring honors student thesis projects, etc...) these are the students you usually connect with. As programs progress, students often grow into their field. I teach at one of these schools and I could name a dozen kids right now who could absolutely hold their own against Hannah from Yale and Henry from Dartmouth.

- A common misconception is that less prestigious schools are filled with idiots who are just there to party. Maybe some, but these schools provide a really important place for many first-generation and otherwise disadvantaged students to achieve higher education. If after a year students are really not ready and can't figure it out, they often leave on their own.

- I think a lot of people picture professors in tweed blazers waxing poetic in the bottom of a captivated lecture pit all day long, and I guess some of us do that sometimes, but teaching can actually be a really small part of the job for many of us. Furthermore, reaching and engaging students who aren't already top of the heap is incredibly rewarding, and this is often WHY we do it for those of us who really do enjoy the teaching part.

TL/DR: No, it's not frustrating at all. I've taught at both types of institutions, and what impacts me the most in terms of job satisfaction is how much I'm expected to produce and how much control I have over my own schedule (better at a "bottom tier school" for me), how rewarding my work is, which is directly correlated to how much I feel like I am helping people (better at a "bottom tier school" for me), and the sense of community among my students and colleagues (also better at a "bottom tier school for me").

[Anonymous]

One of my grad school professors frankly told me I was too good to be at Directional State U. She encouraged me to go somewhere better and then come back at Directional U and do research with her. So that may have been an indicator of how she felt about the others or the university as a whole.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Relative taught at T-14 law school. Did exchanges nationally and internationally. Even as a bit of a snob, he said the top of the class at mid-continent state school was every bit as good as Ivy students. So, yes, maybe not the depth through the class, but still rewarding and interesting. He enjoyed the different settings.

Sure, sure.