Last night I was having a rather involved discussion with a good friend of mine on the topic of professors. Both this friend and myself are what you might call "aficionados" of that most hallowed of stations, that of the professor, especially the Dartmouth professor.
"After all," my friend observed. "If we were at Harvard or Yale we'd never even get to see our professors. Only at Dartmouth do professors give us the personal attention that we so desperately require."
"True, true, my dear companion," I replied. "That's why so many Dartmouth professors have office hours for sometimes as often as two hours per week."
"Indeed," said my friend. "Though I am slightly troubled by one very minor observation I've made during my time here at Dartmouth."
"And what is that, my child?"
"Well," began my friend, her eyes growing mystical and sad. "I have noticed that certain students, students who seem desirous of 'getting ahead in life,' often approach professors after class and during their office hours to engage in meaningless chitchat. Sometimes these rather assiduous types will even ask the professor an extremely obvious question that he or she clearly knows the answer to beforehand."
"And troubling to you this is, my young one?" I asked with the soothing cadence of the Original Professor -- Yoda, of course.
"Well, it seems to me that those students are being rather blatantly sycophantic, and the professors are so wrapped up in their own egos that they mistake this fawning for genuine student interest."
"Yes," I purred, "but such interest not make student genuine!"
"But how can professors be so oblivious? If a student has enough self-respect not to want to kiss up to a professor, that student loses out. I've gotten A's from professors who still can't remember my name."
"Oui, oui," I mused, ruminatively rubbing my beard. "Perhaps you should approach your professor about some actual scholastic issue?"
"But maybe I don't always have a 'scholastic issue!' Sometimes I just know the material and do the work as best I can, without needlessly kowtowing, and consequently the professor doesn't know me from Adam. Meanwhile, the boot-licker sitting next to me who quizzes the prof on the finer points of what is COMPLETELY OBVIOUS gets the better grade!"
"Look, my petulant disciple," I said, the heat rising in my voice. "Wake up and smell the Real World -- no, not the TV show, but the abstract construct. Out there in the land of jobs, boot-licking pays off, it's what gives you that edge. Pride and dignity are all well and good, if you don't mind spending eternity at the bottom of the corporate ladder. Dartmouth College, remember, is fundamentally a pre-professional institution -- we're mostly pre-meds and pre-laws and pre-corporate pimps anyway. Why shouldn't Dartmouth gives us a cynical but veracious sample of what constitutes successful behavior after college?
"Think about it etymologically ... "professor" ... "professional" ... they're strikingly similar."
"I suppose so, oh Great One," she sighed. "But that's not all that bothers me. Several times I've had these professors who, in spite of that fact that the class we're all in has only about ten students, insist on lecturing the whole time, like they're in 3 Rockefeller instead of 105 Thornton! Why are professors so arrogant like that?"
"Arrogant they are not," I said. "However, there are many differing explanations as to why so many professors tend to lecture in what are clearly discussion-sized classes. The most popular theory so far is that some professors are aliens from Neptune, and haven't yet learned to interact with human beings."
"But they are arrogant!" my friend/student maintained. "What about all those Humanities profs who claim to be unbiased in their presentation of the material, but really have some secret agenda like Marxism or atheism? What about the Government profs who endorse the jingoistic American lie? What about boorish Astronomy professors who hate astrology?"
"Well that's just paranoid, my child. Dartmouth professors are free-thinkers ... they have no hidden agendas. They do care about you, especially if you can somehow assist them in completing their research. If you want to get closer to a professor of yours, why don't you offer to do some Xeroxing for one of them? They love a good gopher. Maybe you can babysit for them, and do their dry cleaning, too."
"But what about my self-esteem?"
I smiled.
"This isn't an infomercial, kid.
"This is college."
