Regrets? We'll Post a Few.

• I regret that I settled for my discipline because I couldn't cut the mustard in the field I really loved. Now I work in a job I hate and I put myself here.


• When I get a really good student, I stop actually reading their work very carefully. These are students who are going to get A's no matter what I mark on their tests. I figure why bother. I use the extra time helping flunking students improve.


• I regret not failing every plagiarist the FIRST TIME they plagiarized in class (instead of giving them 2nd and 3rd chances).


• I regret that I've adopted a placid mediocrity at my college just because that's the only way to get ahead.


• I regret that I hopped around for "better" jobs, because now it turns out my first one was the best one, and I'm looked at as a flake.


• I regret that the only thing I can think to do when a student disputes me is to be vindictive with the grades.


• I regret that I've passed dozen of students who I should have flunked. I passed their problems on to someone else because I didn't want the headache.


• I regret that I don't enjoy my teaching more. I'm so worried that I won't be liked (and get good evaluations), that I only teach to make the students happy.


• My colleague is a student favorite, and after I got tired of the endless parade of loving devotees at his office door, I went to a computer lab in the library and gave him a half dozen lousy comments on RateMyProfessor.


• I'm as old as their fathers, but I still get a dirty charge out of looking at the young co-eds.


• I regret that I settled at this shitty college.


• When I was a beginning TA, most of the students were close to me in age. Two or three of them became very flirtatious, particularly when they saw me around campus outside class. While I was their TA, I'd be on my best behavior. But when summer rolled around and I was done being a TA, one of them came over to my place on some pretext or other. We ended up fucking like wild animals for hours. Do I regret this? No... but I regret I didn't do the same with the others. TAs can get away with a hell of a lot more than professors can.


• I took my Dean literally when she asked “what do you honestly think of this proposal” prior to getting tenure.


• I regret that every time I'm asked to take it up the ass for the college I usually say, "How far in do you want to go?


• I regret not tossing every single disruptive student out of class when their cell phones went off and they took the call, when their side conversations were louder than I was, and when their inappropriate computer use became the obvious reason why they had no clue what I was trying to teach them.


• I regret that I've turned my courses into Mickey Mouse versions of what they once were. I'm too tired to fight with these new students who would revolt if I gave them the grades they actually earned.


• Without question (and far outstripping any of the nearly uncountably many bad decisions I've made) I regret marrying one of my students. God help me, it seemed like a good idea at the time....


• My biggest regrets are having dumbed down my courses, inflated my grading, and having caved in to disciplinary problems because of pressure from senior faculty who take anonymous student evaluations too seriously.


• I regret that as a professor at a teaching college my research has suffered. I went into this field because I loved research, and now I spend so little time "doing" what I love.


• I regret not putting forth as little effort as many of my students. After all, if *trying* is all that's supposed to be enough, then a half-assed effort might have been all I needed. After all, why work 60 hours a week prepping, grading, and e-mailing when you barely make more than minimum wage trying to educate the willfully ignorant?


• Once, when I ran out of time, I didn't grade the finals. I had to have the grades in within an unreasonable period of time, so I just took a look at the rows of accumulated grades representing a gazillion hours of other grading instead.


• I regret that because of the nature of the job of professor (i.e. working all hours, weekends, holidays, summers....) that my family life suffers.
  
• I regret caring so much about students who clearly don't care about their own education.
• I regret that I've stopped caring about doing a good job.