Reply to How are kids supposed to address professors? Dr., Professor, first name? Daughter got rude reaction

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Daughter claims basically all of her professors and faculty prefer first name basis. And that same majority are casual about emails, i.e. just say what you have to say, no need for the formal business format each email "Dear Dr. so and so, ... blah blah ... Best, kiddo."

But she casually called one professor by their first name and was sort of pulled to the side and chastised face to face. She did the same in an email response to an advisor and the advisor literally told her to meet her in the office later in the week. At the office she told her she needs to conduct herself with more professionalism. Calm down, Ms. Advisor.

Are the two outliers just obnoxious jerks or do they have a point?[/quote]

There is a lot in the language of this post.  And OP is getting information second hand from daughter - always need to take a step back and think when this is the case.  "Daughter claims" "majority of casual about emails" - how do you know this is in fact true - 13 pages of thread would suggest not true.

"chastised face to face" - really?  or simply informed she was in the wrong.

"Outliers" who are "obnoxious jerks" - just because someone takes the time to give your daughter negative feedback, does not make them a jerk.

I have three kids at various stages of getting college and graduate degrees at a variety of schools - SLAC to large university.  Just polled them about how this works at their schools - about 50/50 first name - more so at the SLAC, but the professors usually indicate preference at the start of a class and if not, the default is Dr. or Professor X until invited to say otherwise.  They are never informal in emails - that would only make them seem immature and unprepared which I am guessing the advisor was trying to help her with.[/quote]

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