7 ms·

NYU Professor Scott Galloway: Ouch

80 points by Wump 17y ago

howcool 17y ago
Haha
CamperBob 17y ago
Quoth the prof: Most risk analysis offers that in the face of substantial uncertainty, you opt for the more conservative path or hedge your bet (e.g., do not show up an hour late until you know the professor has an explicit policy for tolerating disrespectful behavior, check with the TA before class, etc.). Really? I always heard that it was better to apologize later than to ask permission first, at least when you're doing something as harmless as entering a classroom with a lecture in progress. Galloway sounds like a butthurt nitwit who missed his calling as a librarian. He probably isn't, of course, but he certainly doesn't take the high ground in his response to the student's perfectly civil letter. It's true that many doors open in the business world when you make a habit of being early, but it's also true that many doors open when you show up someplace where you aren't supposed to be at all.
- barrkel 17y ago
  A lot of kids (and they are kids) turn up at third level education (some institutions more than others) with an overweening sense of entitlement. Lessons like this aren't out of place.
  - houseabsolute 17y ago
    Dressing someone down for doing something that is usually tolerated (sampling classes at the beginning of the term) is actually a little out of place in my opinion.
    - pingswept 17y ago
      Sampling classes doesn't occur at all schools. I'm an engineer now, but I've taught a few college classes, and having students walking in and out of the lecture is intensely irritating. Maybe it would be better if professors liked being treated like a salad bar, but I understand the sentiment. On the other hand, I wouldn't write an email like that (because I have better things to do (like argue about that email on Hacker News!)).
      - houseabsolute 17y ago
        I can see how it would be irritating. However, you as a provider of educational service are not entitled to your students' patronage. Without checking to see what else is on offer, how can they make an informed decision about which class they should spend their semester on? Surely you don't expect them to trust their luck. After the drop/switch deadline, I think this kind of policy would be fine (if a bit draconian).
        andreyf 17y ago
        Without checking to see what else is on offer, how can they make an informed decision about which class they should spend their semester on. Personally, I would try to drop in on professors' office hours, contact them via email to ask for a quick chat to explain the course, or ask friends for a recommendation. I'm not sure exactly what one can get from 20 minutes of the "these are the books and this is the late policy" kind of stuff covered during the first lecture anyway.
        houseabsolute 17y ago
        Maybe so. I found that among the professors at my school only a handful had personalities that were at all engaging. The remainder ran the gamut from barely tolerable to completely unacceptable. You can get a sense of that factor in the first lecture.
        pingswept 17y ago
        You can also get a good sense of that factor by asking any person who has ever taken a class from that professor. This achieves the same objective, with a little more work and a little less rudeness from you (or whoever it is in this situation).
  - pc 17y ago
    When you're paying $50+/hour[1], I find a sense of entitlement somewhat justified. [1] $40k/year / (5 hours/day * 5 days/week * 32 weeks/year)
    - notaddicted 17y ago
      The 50+ decisive students are paying 50+ times more to be interrupted in order to service the indecision of “xxxx”.
      - Groxx 17y ago
        Try asking the students vs asking the prof. I'll give you two guesses to which finds arriving late / leaving early more offensive.
  - CamperBob 17y ago
    The only sense of entitlement I saw was the professor's. Who's paying who, again?
    - camccann 17y ago
      Well, presumably, there's rather a lot of people paying good money for access to this professor's time and would prefer not to have class disrupted by inconsiderate people coming and going for no good reason. Being a paying customer doesn't grant an entitlement to be obnoxious while on someone else's property and I can't fathom why you think it would. If you got kicked out a movie for talking on a cell phone during the film, would you call the theater "entitled" and ask who's paying who?
      - randyt00 17y ago
        "Being a paying customer doesn't grant an entitlement to be obnoxious while on someone else's property and I can't fathom why you think it would." Straw man. Lame.
      - derefr 17y ago
        In my experience, these people never actually disrupt the class, only the professor. I don't know why you used an analogy of cell-phone usage; the much more obvious analogue is people who come in half-way through a movie. Do we kick them out? Do you, personally, even get annoyed by such people, or do you just wave it off?
        Groxx 17y ago
        I've always seen this too. The classes where the prof doesn't make a big deal out of it? The lecture continues. Nobody remembers in 5 minutes, and everyone keeps going. More students pass the class too, as fewer end up annoyed / insulted that their non-laziness is being attacked, while everyone who simply didn't arrive is silently ignored. The classes where the prof does make a big deal out of it? Lots end up skipping over time, and everybody notices that someone came in because the prof takes time out of class to berate them, causing the prof to lose their (and their students) place in the lecture. The only "reason" I can see for behavior like that is that the professors are acting childish: they want to get even, at the expense of everyone's time, instead of getting over it.
  - Urgel 17y ago
    I can only give anecdotes to back up my opinions here, but at my university, the most respected professors treated the students like adults, or even better, like customers who have paid a lot of money for a valuable service. These professors are respectful to the students, and they get respect in return. They treat students like the mature adults that they are, and the students act as they should.
- colomon 17y ago
  Hey, please leave off with the negative stereotypes of librarians...
  - CamperBob 17y ago
    You know, I struggled with that simile, and it came down to either librarians or priests. :-P Neither one really worked, I agree. Should've gone with "prima ballerina," maybe.
staunch 17y ago
Sayre's Law states, in a formulation quoted by Charles Philip Issawi: "In any dispute the intensity of feeling is inversely proportional to the value of the stakes at issue." By way of corollary, it adds: "That is why academic politics are so bitter." Sayre's law is named after Wallace Stanley Sayre (1905-1972), U.S. political scientist and professor at Columbia University.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
- RyanMcGreal 17y ago
  "University politics are vicious precisely because the stakes are so small." -- Henry Kissinger
jessriedel 17y ago
Is there someway to interpret this other than the Professor is a arrogant a-hole? What's interesting about this?
- barrkel 17y ago
  Yes. That the student is an arrogant and inconsiderate a-hole. But, there's hope for him or her - they may learn better with lessons like this one.
  - icefox 17y ago
    how is that interesting?
  - natrius 17y ago
    Both of them are. It is reasonable to expect that sampling classes that are scheduled at the same time will be acceptable. However, it's not something students are entitled to. The proper way to respond to such a policy if you insist on responding is to explain your situation and ask the the professor revisit his policy for the beginning of the term in the future. I hate people.
    - smokinn 17y ago
      I hate people. Seriously. I really wish I hadn't read the comments on the blog post and the "discussion" here. Sigh. What a waste of time.
  - teye 17y ago
    This is not a lesson, though it could have served as one had it been written differently. This is a petty response whose potential value is completely obscured by the author's self-importance and condescension.
  - deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]
- larsberg 17y ago
CoachRufus87 17y ago
i like this professor. i trust that the guy learned his lesson too & will remember to show some decorum in the future.
- pw0ncakes 17y ago
  At first, my natural inclination was to dislike you. The professor comes off as an asshole. On the other hand, the student was taught a lesson in a harmless way. Anyone who wants to go into business needs to be able to handle egotistical assholes who make this professor seem saintly by comparison.
  - bigiain 17y ago
    In my opinion (as pointed out by lucifer already) the ""xxxx, get your shit together." and following paragraph are quite likely to be the most important lesson the student will learn in his entire academic career. The professor wrote a highly memorable obviously personalised letter to the student teaching that. Without outside evidence of "egotistical assholishenss" from the prof (which _may_ exist), I'd read it as an intentionally exaggerated reaction with a solid grain of cold hard truth.
detcader 17y ago
Laptops have "send" buttons? This professor needs to take a class or two.
- mikeg8 17y ago
  clicking send on the email... duh
  - detcader 17y ago
    "You are an anonymous student who is now regretting the send button on his laptop." /on/ his laptop. The intent may be subtle, but I'm pretty sure that's a technical faux pas.
    - sanswork 17y ago
      My email send button is on my laptop. Usually located near the top right of the screen. He is also a business professor not a CS one I'm sure technical terminology isn't high on his list of things to be well versed in.
      - MaysonL 17y ago
        He's the head of a hedge fund which owns 4.9% of the New York Times. He originally made his money founding, and selling, Red Envelope. See also: http://www.portfolio.com/executives/features/2008/01/31/Scott-Galloway-Profile/ http://www.portfolio.com/executives/features/2008/01/31/Scot...
lutorm 17y ago
For many stories like these, check out http://rateyourstudents.blogspot.com/ http://rateyourstudents.blogspot.com/
AndrewWarner 17y ago
Looks like he'd make a great Mixergy interviewee. I just emailed him my request. If anyone here knows him please put in a good word for me.
- philk 17y ago
  The tagline for mixergy is "Online Business Tips from Successful Entrepreneurs". I'm having a hard time imagining how he fits with that or why he'd make a great interviewee. As far as I can tell, his claim to fame is writing a narky email to someone who's paying ~ $40K/year to learn. What unique or interesting thing does he bring to the table? "Being nasty to your customers" doesn't work as well when you're outside of the sheltered workshop that is academia.
  - rortian 17y ago
    They aren't customers, they are students. You can't fail customers.
    - philk 17y ago
      I think the line gets a bit blurred when you charge as much for tuition as some of these MBA programs. (The value proposition is actually a bit puzzling given you could lock yourself in a cheap apartment somewhere for ~18 months and try out different business ideas without having to work for the same amount as a years tuition).
    - Andys 17y ago
      I wish someone would tell Australian universities this. They are not here to teach any more - just to "ship a product to market".
    - yummyfajitas 17y ago
      If your job is to accurately assess your customers, you certainly can fail them.
  - bmunro 17y ago
    The professor is the founder of redenvelope.com. Potentially relevant to mixergy, but I'm not sure how interesting an interview it would be.
bouncingsoul 17y ago
I don't see an overall good in the professor's late policy. Awkwardness is usually enough of a deterrent to people willingly being late. This extreme policy punishes those who are unwillingly late (car trouble, emergencies, etc.). Making a show out of kicking out late students is self-important. The professor extrapolating from this one event that the student is failing at life and should be thankful this professor set him straight indicates more of that attitude to me. I've been in classes where a late student was told to leave. It was way more distracting than if he'd just been allowed to sit down because it sets off a bunch of pondering and empathy, and you look around you to see what the other students think about the situation, and you're no longer hearing the teacher talk.
rmk 17y ago
Solid advice indeed. From what I have heard, the average Stern student is a jackass.
lucifer 17y ago
"xxxx, get your shit together. Getting a good job, working long hours, keeping your skills relevant, navigating the politics of an organization, finding a live/work balance…these are all really hard, xxxx. In contrast, respecting institutions, having manners, demonstrating a level of humility…these are all (relatively) easy. Get the easy stuff right xxxx. In and of themselves they will not make you successful. However, not possessing them will hold you back and you will not achieve your potential which, by virtue of you being admitted to Stern, you must have in spades. It’s not too late xxxx…" Now that is an honest to goodness teacher. xxxx is quite fortunate. She/he may or not may recognize this now, but that letter was such a huge favor.
- jules 17y ago
  You mean he learnt that he should avoid this prof at all costs? The student is paying the prof, not the other way around.
  - telemachos 17y ago
    You could not possibly be more wrong. The student pays the university. The university pays the professor. This is not a small detail. Professors (and other teachers more generally) are not personal employees of their students. Beyond that, the student is paying for an education and - in the case of an MBA - an entrance into a professional world. He or she just got both. I would say this semester, he or she already got value for the investment.
- johnrob 17y ago
  Imagine how much potential Steve Jobs would have if he got any of that "easy stuff" right.
  - Perceval 17y ago
    Jobs dropped out of Reed not because he wouldn't/couldn't play by the rules, but because he didn't think he was getting value for the top dollar his parents were spending to send him there. He ended up 'dropping in' on classes (like calligraphy), but there's no indication that he just strolled in an hour late and disrespected the professors he was trying to learn from.
greenlblue 17y ago
This just shows that professors are just as retarded as students.
philk 17y ago
I'm betting that the student is currently really grateful that he sampled other classes and hence didn't get stuck with this guy.
MaysonL 17y ago
A fairly good takedown of the prof (including some insights gained from Googling him): http://christophervilmar.wordpress.com/2010/02/23/galloway-from-those-ellipses-sir/ http://christophervilmar.wordpress.com/2010/02/23/galloway-f...
tmsh 17y ago
Ironically, this is sort of an interesting b-school case study. s/student's career/business/g. Esp. in New York. What is the marginal utility function for disrespect? Does it vary by environment? Professor? In the immediate context, if the potential reward of a great class that would be missed if the student didn't sample outweighs the potential backlash the student will receive by sampling, it makes no sense for the individual student to forgo the opportunity. However, outside of the immediate context, if it breeds bad habits and a lack of decorum, that can be injurious in the long run. Actually, I think the appropriate modus operandi in New York is to sample if you want and if a professor tells you to leave or come back in the next class, then do so. But don't take it personally and e-mail. In Silicon Valley and elsewhere, I think it varies.
SandB0x 17y ago
While Galloway may or may not be an "arrogant a-hole", I can understand him snapping. (small rant:) On my master's there are a few people who regularly show up halfway into lectures (leaving the doors swinging and banging), leave work that requires genuine understanding and insight until the last possible second and just generally seem confused by everything. They're intelligent folk, but I don't understand the lack of application at this stage. Why bother coming? It's not like they're starting businesses or fighting crime at night. I used to be a sloppy student at undergraduate, but for a postgrad degree there's just no point being there unless you want to attack your subject like a rabid dog. Nobody will save you at this point. Nobody cares if you fail.
holdenc 17y ago
These two people deserve each other. sighs
yumraj 17y ago
Personally, I'm really amazed that some people, both below and in comments to that article, are finding themselves siding with the student. IMO the prof's email was excellent. He conveyed his point across very nicely without showing even a small hint of irritation or annoyance. The part copied below, for me, really sums it up. This student is an immature jackass and s/he really needs growing up. S/he first made a mistake and then had the audacity of justifying his/her action. Personally I would hate to have a person like that in my team. Quoted part: Just so I’ve got this straight…you started in one class, left 15-20 minutes into it (stood up, walked out mid-lecture), went to another class (walked in 20 minutes late), left that class (again, presumably, in the middle of the lecture), and then came to my class. At that point (walking in an hour late) I asked you to come to the next class which “bothered” you. To the folks who are siding with the student: Find out who s/he was, hire him/her and then lets see what your reaction is when the moron walks in late to meetings, customer calls, doesn't deliver on time etc. and then when you fire him/her, sues you..
- johnrob 17y ago
  Don't ignore some of the good traits this student is showing, namely the interest to try 3 different lectures and the guts to email the prof. This person could easily turn out to be a star. We can't only focus on one part of the data.
- icco 17y ago
  I totally agree. I currently am a student at a public university, although on the other side of the country, and this behavior in any of my classes would result in the teacher refusing to enroll a student in the class. You are older than 18, grow a pair and learn to respect others time and energy. The quote that I'm hoping the kid really gets is of course "having manners, demonstrating a level of humility…these are all (relatively) easy. Get the easy stuff right". Hope this kid grows up before he joins the workforce, or hell, attends another day of class, because this behavior is just not OK for an adult.
- lallysingh 17y ago
  For the anti-establishment types automatically siding with students: Remember that this is a total of 4 class interruptions for every other student in the course.
euroclydon 17y ago
In order to be humble, you must learn to accept humiliation. - Mother Teresa
mreid 17y ago
My wife is a lecturer and had a related experience with a student. Sometime early in the semester after the course outline had been presented to her students, my wife received an email in which a student put forward his plan on how he was going to game the course to get a pass with the minimum amount of work. It went something like this: According to the course outline, I plan to just read the poetry and one of the books. If I do essays 1 on the poetry, essays 3 and 4 comparing the book to the poetry, skip essay 3 and get 50% on the exam then, by my calculations I should get a pass. Could you tell me if this plan will work? I've heard of time management but I'd never seen such a blatant disregard for actually wanting to learn anything in a course before. It didn't occur to the student that telling a lecturer that her course was just an obstacle course to be rushed through as efficiently as possible was a little disrespectful?
- greenlblue 17y ago
  There is nothing disrespectful here. It is simply a symptom of how universities operate. It's even more blatantly obvious in lower division math classes.
  - yummyfajitas 17y ago
    Universities often to require students to take lots of filler courses, unrelated to their chosen field, taught simply to raise funds for the department providing the filler. So that english course could easily be nothing but an obstacle in the way of an engineering or business major graduating. And it might be an obstacle which exists solely to get some of the student's money.
  - mreid 17y ago
    > There is nothing disrespectful here. I disagree. The point is not that the course might be mandatory for a business student (it wasn't - the student picked it as an elective), nor that he shouldn't make and execute such a plan if he thinks it is in his best interests. The disrespect was in telling the lecturer, "we both know this is a waste of my time so tell me how to get it over with as easily as possible". It's like constantly checking your phone while talking to someone in person. Even if you are listening to what they are saying, you are signalling to that person that there are more interesting things than them which demand your attention.
ShabbyDoo 17y ago
"respecting institutions" This I have never understood. What does it mean to respect an institution? Is this sort of like corporate personhood (which I am not taking a stance on)? Does Harvard demand more respect than the local community college? The word "respect" is as loaded as the word "fair." One interpretation is simply, "Don't be rude." But, that's not all that the word commonly encompasses. Implicit in most definitions is the difference in social status between two parties. When is it properly "respectful" to call John Smith by his first name instead of "Mister Smith"? When the person addressing John is socially beneath him?
ksraines 17y ago
Apart from the tortured logic, the most egregious part of the e-mail was the Prof.’s elementary math error. Question: A student goes to three classes, each for approximately the same amount of time. He arrives at the third course approximately an hour after the first one started – how long was the student in each of the first two classes? Professor: 15-20 minutes! (He mistakenly divided 1 hour by three and tried to account for travel time. Of course he should have divided by two.) In combination with his grammatical skills, I’d say the Prof needs to get HIS shit together! But seriously, the student was justified to walk in, but not justified to complain about being thrown out. The Prof's e-mail was bizarre but the closing paragraph was well-spoken.
Groxx 17y ago
While I mostly agree with the prof's response in this situation, as the student should've both accepted that his actions may be rejected and should've spoken with the profs first if possible, professors seriously need to get over themselves. Quite frankly, they are not, much less all (despite the apparently common belief), the most important part of anyone's life, and other events do indeed come up. The part I disagree with is the policy. How is interrupting the class further to turn them away at all helpful? Speak afterwards; you're only turning a minor distraction into a major one. Especially since people who come in late are demonstrating that they are interested enough to arrive and face that glare / lecture, more often in-class than out. Laziness / shit not together would be far better demonstrated by not going to class at all, but no professors I've encountered take as strong of a stance on that. It's disproportional and insulting to the people who do show up to make a big deal out of it (prior to other attempts to change things), both the late arrivals and the ones who have to sit through the whole fabricated event. Manners and respect should exist? Absolutely. But that doesn't give professors any additional right to that feeling of entitlement. I've met some real jerks of professors in my time, and they're typically also the worst teachers around. What right do they have to act like that? Oh, right. Tenure (forgive my expletive). Respect is, and should be, earned. They get a little bonus for being in the teacher role, but for many (note: not saying most, not denying its possibility either) the line "those who cannot do, teach" is true. In summary: act respectfully. Both of you.
mallipeddi 17y ago
My university had a simple fix for this problem - all lecture halls actually had doors at the back. People who have back-to-back classes in different departments had to take a shuttle bus to commute since the campus is big. They could slip in silently from the back door and take a seat somewhere in the last few rows. No body gets disturbed, and the prof doesn't get offended.
wmorgan 17y ago
Why is this story so polarizing? Here's a theory, inspired by a Less Wrong post [1]: some people, thinking back to their time in class, remember how distracting it was for a student to come to class in the middle of a lecture. Others, like myself, barely even noticed. The one side thinks "how rude of the student to walk in and out of lectures like that!" and the other side thinks "what's the big deal? Just ignore it!" and from there they side with the professor or the student, respectively. Does this gel with your personal experiences? Is there anyone who sided with the professor but does not find student movement distracting? Or anyone who sided with the student but can't stand it? [1] http://lesswrong.com/lw/dr/generalizing_from_one_example/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/dr/generalizing_from_one_example/
kellogs 17y ago
this conversation depicts exactly the type of professor I hope I never become. 1) the classroom != business meetings----------- in meetings, other people rely on you being there. in lecture, professor just talks - he can give the same lecture to an empty room or to a full room. it doesn't matter 2) student is not responsible to the professor. ----- because the student's presence is not needed to make an effective lecture, the student has no responsibility to check with the TA or something. his presence is for his benefit alone, his absence is to his damage alone. 3) lecture is not affected by walk-ins and walk-outs ---- no student tries to "make a statement" by walking in late to class. it is not disruptive, if they walk in,find a spot, and sit down, quietly. the lecture is not affected, if they are focused, people hardly notice the door opening. it's like somebody coughing in lecture - who hears it, who remembers it? nobody. 4) professor is wrong to interpret this as deliberate action--- there are a million and one reasons to be late for class or go early. in a large class, a small subset will always have some kind of priority over lecture, be it conflict exams,interviews, small accidents on the way,or lecture sampling. this is completely understandable, the students' lives don't revolve around the lecture. 5) policies should become "strict" after 1st week ---- even if the professor decides to exercise his snobbiness by power of being a lecturer, he should have done so not in the first lecture, but made it clear to the entire class, multiple times during the first week, and started implementing it next week. dismissing the student is such a shallow, "i got the power", type of behavior. extremely disappointing display of insecurity of an NYU MBA professor. 6) urinating? ---- wow the professor goes over his head with his outrageous analogies. no logical sense.

80 points by Wump 17y ago

Haha

Quoth the prof: Most risk analysis offers that in the face of substantial uncertainty, you opt for the more conservative path or hedge your bet (e.g., do not show up an hour late until you know the professor has an explicit policy for tolerating disrespectful behavior, check with the TA before class, etc.). Really? I always heard that it was better to apologize later than to ask permission first, at least when you're doing something as harmless as entering a classroom with a lecture in progress. Galloway sounds like a butthurt nitwit who missed his calling as a librarian. He probably isn't, of course, but he certainly doesn't take the high ground in his response to the student's perfectly civil letter. It's true that many doors open in the business world when you make a habit of being early, but it's also true that many doors open when you show up someplace where you aren't supposed to be at all.

barrkel 17y ago
A lot of kids (and they are kids) turn up at third level education (some institutions more than others) with an overweening sense of entitlement. Lessons like this aren't out of place.
- houseabsolute 17y ago
  Dressing someone down for doing something that is usually tolerated (sampling classes at the beginning of the term) is actually a little out of place in my opinion.
  - pingswept 17y ago
    Sampling classes doesn't occur at all schools. I'm an engineer now, but I've taught a few college classes, and having students walking in and out of the lecture is intensely irritating. Maybe it would be better if professors liked being treated like a salad bar, but I understand the sentiment. On the other hand, I wouldn't write an email like that (because I have better things to do (like argue about that email on Hacker News!)).
    - houseabsolute 17y ago
      I can see how it would be irritating. However, you as a provider of educational service are not entitled to your students' patronage. Without checking to see what else is on offer, how can they make an informed decision about which class they should spend their semester on? Surely you don't expect them to trust their luck. After the drop/switch deadline, I think this kind of policy would be fine (if a bit draconian).
      - andreyf 17y ago
        Without checking to see what else is on offer, how can they make an informed decision about which class they should spend their semester on. Personally, I would try to drop in on professors' office hours, contact them via email to ask for a quick chat to explain the course, or ask friends for a recommendation. I'm not sure exactly what one can get from 20 minutes of the "these are the books and this is the late policy" kind of stuff covered during the first lecture anyway.
        houseabsolute 17y ago
        Maybe so. I found that among the professors at my school only a handful had personalities that were at all engaging. The remainder ran the gamut from barely tolerable to completely unacceptable. You can get a sense of that factor in the first lecture.
        pingswept 17y ago
        You can also get a good sense of that factor by asking any person who has ever taken a class from that professor. This achieves the same objective, with a little more work and a little less rudeness from you (or whoever it is in this situation).
- pc 17y ago
  When you're paying $50+/hour[1], I find a sense of entitlement somewhat justified. [1] $40k/year / (5 hours/day * 5 days/week * 32 weeks/year)
  - notaddicted 17y ago
    The 50+ decisive students are paying 50+ times more to be interrupted in order to service the indecision of “xxxx”.
    - Groxx 17y ago
      Try asking the students vs asking the prof. I'll give you two guesses to which finds arriving late / leaving early more offensive.
- CamperBob 17y ago
  The only sense of entitlement I saw was the professor's. Who's paying who, again?
  - camccann 17y ago
    Well, presumably, there's rather a lot of people paying good money for access to this professor's time and would prefer not to have class disrupted by inconsiderate people coming and going for no good reason. Being a paying customer doesn't grant an entitlement to be obnoxious while on someone else's property and I can't fathom why you think it would. If you got kicked out a movie for talking on a cell phone during the film, would you call the theater "entitled" and ask who's paying who?
    - randyt00 17y ago
      "Being a paying customer doesn't grant an entitlement to be obnoxious while on someone else's property and I can't fathom why you think it would." Straw man. Lame.
    - derefr 17y ago
      In my experience, these people never actually disrupt the class, only the professor. I don't know why you used an analogy of cell-phone usage; the much more obvious analogue is people who come in half-way through a movie. Do we kick them out? Do you, personally, even get annoyed by such people, or do you just wave it off?
      - Groxx 17y ago
        I've always seen this too. The classes where the prof doesn't make a big deal out of it? The lecture continues. Nobody remembers in 5 minutes, and everyone keeps going. More students pass the class too, as fewer end up annoyed / insulted that their non-laziness is being attacked, while everyone who simply didn't arrive is silently ignored. The classes where the prof does make a big deal out of it? Lots end up skipping over time, and everybody notices that someone came in because the prof takes time out of class to berate them, causing the prof to lose their (and their students) place in the lecture. The only "reason" I can see for behavior like that is that the professors are acting childish: they want to get even, at the expense of everyone's time, instead of getting over it.
- Urgel 17y ago
  I can only give anecdotes to back up my opinions here, but at my university, the most respected professors treated the students like adults, or even better, like customers who have paid a lot of money for a valuable service. These professors are respectful to the students, and they get respect in return. They treat students like the mature adults that they are, and the students act as they should.
colomon 17y ago
Hey, please leave off with the negative stereotypes of librarians...
- CamperBob 17y ago
  You know, I struggled with that simile, and it came down to either librarians or priests. :-P Neither one really worked, I agree. Should've gone with "prima ballerina," maybe.

staunch 17y ago

Sayre's Law states, in a formulation quoted by Charles Philip Issawi: "In any dispute the intensity of feeling is inversely proportional to the value of the stakes at issue." By way of corollary, it adds: "That is why academic politics are so bitter." Sayre's law is named after Wallace Stanley Sayre (1905-1972), U.S. political scientist and professor at Columbia University.

deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
RyanMcGreal 17y ago
"University politics are vicious precisely because the stakes are so small." -- Henry Kissinger

jessriedel 17y ago

Is there someway to interpret this other than the Professor is a arrogant a-hole? What's interesting about this?

barrkel 17y ago
Yes. That the student is an arrogant and inconsiderate a-hole. But, there's hope for him or her - they may learn better with lessons like this one.
- icefox 17y ago
  how is that interesting?
- natrius 17y ago
  Both of them are. It is reasonable to expect that sampling classes that are scheduled at the same time will be acceptable. However, it's not something students are entitled to. The proper way to respond to such a policy if you insist on responding is to explain your situation and ask the the professor revisit his policy for the beginning of the term in the future. I hate people.
  - smokinn 17y ago
    I hate people. Seriously. I really wish I hadn't read the comments on the blog post and the "discussion" here. Sigh. What a waste of time.
- teye 17y ago
  This is not a lesson, though it could have served as one had it been written differently. This is a petty response whose potential value is completely obscured by the author's self-importance and condescension.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
larsberg 17y ago

CoachRufus87 17y ago

i like this professor. i trust that the guy learned his lesson too & will remember to show some decorum in the future.

pw0ncakes 17y ago
At first, my natural inclination was to dislike you. The professor comes off as an asshole. On the other hand, the student was taught a lesson in a harmless way. Anyone who wants to go into business needs to be able to handle egotistical assholes who make this professor seem saintly by comparison.
- bigiain 17y ago
  In my opinion (as pointed out by lucifer already) the ""xxxx, get your shit together." and following paragraph are quite likely to be the most important lesson the student will learn in his entire academic career. The professor wrote a highly memorable obviously personalised letter to the student teaching that. Without outside evidence of "egotistical assholishenss" from the prof (which _may_ exist), I'd read it as an intentionally exaggerated reaction with a solid grain of cold hard truth.

detcader 17y ago

Laptops have "send" buttons? This professor needs to take a class or two.

mikeg8 17y ago
clicking send on the email... duh
- detcader 17y ago
  "You are an anonymous student who is now regretting the send button on his laptop." /on/ his laptop. The intent may be subtle, but I'm pretty sure that's a technical faux pas.
  - sanswork 17y ago
    My email send button is on my laptop. Usually located near the top right of the screen. He is also a business professor not a CS one I'm sure technical terminology isn't high on his list of things to be well versed in.
    - MaysonL 17y ago
      He's the head of a hedge fund which owns 4.9% of the New York Times. He originally made his money founding, and selling, Red Envelope. See also: http://www.portfolio.com/executives/features/2008/01/31/Scott-Galloway-Profile/ http://www.portfolio.com/executives/features/2008/01/31/Scot...

lutorm 17y ago

For many stories like these, check out http://rateyourstudents.blogspot.com/ http://rateyourstudents.blogspot.com/

AndrewWarner 17y ago

Looks like he'd make a great Mixergy interviewee. I just emailed him my request. If anyone here knows him please put in a good word for me.

philk 17y ago
The tagline for mixergy is "Online Business Tips from Successful Entrepreneurs". I'm having a hard time imagining how he fits with that or why he'd make a great interviewee. As far as I can tell, his claim to fame is writing a narky email to someone who's paying ~ $40K/year to learn. What unique or interesting thing does he bring to the table? "Being nasty to your customers" doesn't work as well when you're outside of the sheltered workshop that is academia.
- rortian 17y ago
  They aren't customers, they are students. You can't fail customers.
  - philk 17y ago
    I think the line gets a bit blurred when you charge as much for tuition as some of these MBA programs. (The value proposition is actually a bit puzzling given you could lock yourself in a cheap apartment somewhere for ~18 months and try out different business ideas without having to work for the same amount as a years tuition).
  - Andys 17y ago
    I wish someone would tell Australian universities this. They are not here to teach any more - just to "ship a product to market".
  - yummyfajitas 17y ago
    If your job is to accurately assess your customers, you certainly can fail them.
- bmunro 17y ago
  The professor is the founder of redenvelope.com. Potentially relevant to mixergy, but I'm not sure how interesting an interview it would be.

bouncingsoul 17y ago

I don't see an overall good in the professor's late policy. Awkwardness is usually enough of a deterrent to people willingly being late. This extreme policy punishes those who are unwillingly late (car trouble, emergencies, etc.). Making a show out of kicking out late students is self-important. The professor extrapolating from this one event that the student is failing at life and should be thankful this professor set him straight indicates more of that attitude to me. I've been in classes where a late student was told to leave. It was way more distracting than if he'd just been allowed to sit down because it sets off a bunch of pondering and empathy, and you look around you to see what the other students think about the situation, and you're no longer hearing the teacher talk.

rmk 17y ago

Solid advice indeed. From what I have heard, the average Stern student is a jackass.

lucifer 17y ago

"xxxx, get your shit together. Getting a good job, working long hours, keeping your skills relevant, navigating the politics of an organization, finding a live/work balance…these are all really hard, xxxx. In contrast, respecting institutions, having manners, demonstrating a level of humility…these are all (relatively) easy. Get the easy stuff right xxxx. In and of themselves they will not make you successful. However, not possessing them will hold you back and you will not achieve your potential which, by virtue of you being admitted to Stern, you must have in spades. It’s not too late xxxx…" Now that is an honest to goodness teacher. xxxx is quite fortunate. She/he may or not may recognize this now, but that letter was such a huge favor.

jules 17y ago
You mean he learnt that he should avoid this prof at all costs? The student is paying the prof, not the other way around.
- telemachos 17y ago
  You could not possibly be more wrong. The student pays the university. The university pays the professor. This is not a small detail. Professors (and other teachers more generally) are not personal employees of their students. Beyond that, the student is paying for an education and - in the case of an MBA - an entrance into a professional world. He or she just got both. I would say this semester, he or she already got value for the investment.
johnrob 17y ago
Imagine how much potential Steve Jobs would have if he got any of that "easy stuff" right.
- Perceval 17y ago
  Jobs dropped out of Reed not because he wouldn't/couldn't play by the rules, but because he didn't think he was getting value for the top dollar his parents were spending to send him there. He ended up 'dropping in' on classes (like calligraphy), but there's no indication that he just strolled in an hour late and disrespected the professors he was trying to learn from.

greenlblue 17y ago

This just shows that professors are just as retarded as students.

philk 17y ago

I'm betting that the student is currently really grateful that he sampled other classes and hence didn't get stuck with this guy.

MaysonL 17y ago

A fairly good takedown of the prof (including some insights gained from Googling him): http://christophervilmar.wordpress.com/2010/02/23/galloway-from-those-ellipses-sir/ http://christophervilmar.wordpress.com/2010/02/23/galloway-f...

tmsh 17y ago

Ironically, this is sort of an interesting b-school case study. s/student's career/business/g. Esp. in New York. What is the marginal utility function for disrespect? Does it vary by environment? Professor? In the immediate context, if the potential reward of a great class that would be missed if the student didn't sample outweighs the potential backlash the student will receive by sampling, it makes no sense for the individual student to forgo the opportunity. However, outside of the immediate context, if it breeds bad habits and a lack of decorum, that can be injurious in the long run. Actually, I think the appropriate modus operandi in New York is to sample if you want and if a professor tells you to leave or come back in the next class, then do so. But don't take it personally and e-mail. In Silicon Valley and elsewhere, I think it varies.

SandB0x 17y ago

While Galloway may or may not be an "arrogant a-hole", I can understand him snapping. (small rant:) On my master's there are a few people who regularly show up halfway into lectures (leaving the doors swinging and banging), leave work that requires genuine understanding and insight until the last possible second and just generally seem confused by everything. They're intelligent folk, but I don't understand the lack of application at this stage. Why bother coming? It's not like they're starting businesses or fighting crime at night. I used to be a sloppy student at undergraduate, but for a postgrad degree there's just no point being there unless you want to attack your subject like a rabid dog. Nobody will save you at this point. Nobody cares if you fail.

holdenc 17y ago

These two people deserve each other. sighs

yumraj 17y ago

Personally, I'm really amazed that some people, both below and in comments to that article, are finding themselves siding with the student. IMO the prof's email was excellent. He conveyed his point across very nicely without showing even a small hint of irritation or annoyance. The part copied below, for me, really sums it up. This student is an immature jackass and s/he really needs growing up. S/he first made a mistake and then had the audacity of justifying his/her action. Personally I would hate to have a person like that in my team. Quoted part: Just so I’ve got this straight…you started in one class, left 15-20 minutes into it (stood up, walked out mid-lecture), went to another class (walked in 20 minutes late), left that class (again, presumably, in the middle of the lecture), and then came to my class. At that point (walking in an hour late) I asked you to come to the next class which “bothered” you. To the folks who are siding with the student: Find out who s/he was, hire him/her and then lets see what your reaction is when the moron walks in late to meetings, customer calls, doesn't deliver on time etc. and then when you fire him/her, sues you..

johnrob 17y ago
Don't ignore some of the good traits this student is showing, namely the interest to try 3 different lectures and the guts to email the prof. This person could easily turn out to be a star. We can't only focus on one part of the data.
icco 17y ago
I totally agree. I currently am a student at a public university, although on the other side of the country, and this behavior in any of my classes would result in the teacher refusing to enroll a student in the class. You are older than 18, grow a pair and learn to respect others time and energy. The quote that I'm hoping the kid really gets is of course "having manners, demonstrating a level of humility…these are all (relatively) easy. Get the easy stuff right". Hope this kid grows up before he joins the workforce, or hell, attends another day of class, because this behavior is just not OK for an adult.
lallysingh 17y ago
For the anti-establishment types automatically siding with students: Remember that this is a total of 4 class interruptions for every other student in the course.

euroclydon 17y ago

In order to be humble, you must learn to accept humiliation. - Mother Teresa

mreid 17y ago

My wife is a lecturer and had a related experience with a student. Sometime early in the semester after the course outline had been presented to her students, my wife received an email in which a student put forward his plan on how he was going to game the course to get a pass with the minimum amount of work. It went something like this: According to the course outline, I plan to just read the poetry and one of the books. If I do essays 1 on the poetry, essays 3 and 4 comparing the book to the poetry, skip essay 3 and get 50% on the exam then, by my calculations I should get a pass. Could you tell me if this plan will work? I've heard of time management but I'd never seen such a blatant disregard for actually wanting to learn anything in a course before. It didn't occur to the student that telling a lecturer that her course was just an obstacle course to be rushed through as efficiently as possible was a little disrespectful?

greenlblue 17y ago
There is nothing disrespectful here. It is simply a symptom of how universities operate. It's even more blatantly obvious in lower division math classes.
- yummyfajitas 17y ago
  Universities often to require students to take lots of filler courses, unrelated to their chosen field, taught simply to raise funds for the department providing the filler. So that english course could easily be nothing but an obstacle in the way of an engineering or business major graduating. And it might be an obstacle which exists solely to get some of the student's money.
- mreid 17y ago
  > There is nothing disrespectful here. I disagree. The point is not that the course might be mandatory for a business student (it wasn't - the student picked it as an elective), nor that he shouldn't make and execute such a plan if he thinks it is in his best interests. The disrespect was in telling the lecturer, "we both know this is a waste of my time so tell me how to get it over with as easily as possible". It's like constantly checking your phone while talking to someone in person. Even if you are listening to what they are saying, you are signalling to that person that there are more interesting things than them which demand your attention.

ShabbyDoo 17y ago

"respecting institutions" This I have never understood. What does it mean to respect an institution? Is this sort of like corporate personhood (which I am not taking a stance on)? Does Harvard demand more respect than the local community college? The word "respect" is as loaded as the word "fair." One interpretation is simply, "Don't be rude." But, that's not all that the word commonly encompasses. Implicit in most definitions is the difference in social status between two parties. When is it properly "respectful" to call John Smith by his first name instead of "Mister Smith"? When the person addressing John is socially beneath him?

ksraines 17y ago

Apart from the tortured logic, the most egregious part of the e-mail was the Prof.’s elementary math error. Question: A student goes to three classes, each for approximately the same amount of time. He arrives at the third course approximately an hour after the first one started – how long was the student in each of the first two classes? Professor: 15-20 minutes! (He mistakenly divided 1 hour by three and tried to account for travel time. Of course he should have divided by two.) In combination with his grammatical skills, I’d say the Prof needs to get HIS shit together! But seriously, the student was justified to walk in, but not justified to complain about being thrown out. The Prof's e-mail was bizarre but the closing paragraph was well-spoken.

Groxx 17y ago

While I mostly agree with the prof's response in this situation, as the student should've both accepted that his actions may be rejected and should've spoken with the profs first if possible, professors seriously need to get over themselves. Quite frankly, they are not, much less all (despite the apparently common belief), the most important part of anyone's life, and other events do indeed come up. The part I disagree with is the policy. How is interrupting the class further to turn them away at all helpful? Speak afterwards; you're only turning a minor distraction into a major one. Especially since people who come in late are demonstrating that they are interested enough to arrive and face that glare / lecture, more often in-class than out. Laziness / shit not together would be far better demonstrated by not going to class at all, but no professors I've encountered take as strong of a stance on that. It's disproportional and insulting to the people who do show up to make a big deal out of it (prior to other attempts to change things), both the late arrivals and the ones who have to sit through the whole fabricated event. Manners and respect should exist? Absolutely. But that doesn't give professors any additional right to that feeling of entitlement. I've met some real jerks of professors in my time, and they're typically also the worst teachers around. What right do they have to act like that? Oh, right. Tenure (forgive my expletive). Respect is, and should be, earned. They get a little bonus for being in the teacher role, but for many (note: not saying most, not denying its possibility either) the line "those who cannot do, teach" is true. In summary: act respectfully. Both of you.

mallipeddi 17y ago

My university had a simple fix for this problem - all lecture halls actually had doors at the back. People who have back-to-back classes in different departments had to take a shuttle bus to commute since the campus is big. They could slip in silently from the back door and take a seat somewhere in the last few rows. No body gets disturbed, and the prof doesn't get offended.

wmorgan 17y ago

Why is this story so polarizing? Here's a theory, inspired by a Less Wrong post [1]: some people, thinking back to their time in class, remember how distracting it was for a student to come to class in the middle of a lecture. Others, like myself, barely even noticed. The one side thinks "how rude of the student to walk in and out of lectures like that!" and the other side thinks "what's the big deal? Just ignore it!" and from there they side with the professor or the student, respectively. Does this gel with your personal experiences? Is there anyone who sided with the professor but does not find student movement distracting? Or anyone who sided with the student but can't stand it? [1] http://lesswrong.com/lw/dr/generalizing_from_one_example/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/dr/generalizing_from_one_example/

kellogs 17y ago

this conversation depicts exactly the type of professor I hope I never become. 1) the classroom != business meetings----------- in meetings, other people rely on you being there. in lecture, professor just talks - he can give the same lecture to an empty room or to a full room. it doesn't matter 2) student is not responsible to the professor. ----- because the student's presence is not needed to make an effective lecture, the student has no responsibility to check with the TA or something. his presence is for his benefit alone, his absence is to his damage alone. 3) lecture is not affected by walk-ins and walk-outs ---- no student tries to "make a statement" by walking in late to class. it is not disruptive, if they walk in,find a spot, and sit down, quietly. the lecture is not affected, if they are focused, people hardly notice the door opening. it's like somebody coughing in lecture - who hears it, who remembers it? nobody. 4) professor is wrong to interpret this as deliberate action--- there are a million and one reasons to be late for class or go early. in a large class, a small subset will always have some kind of priority over lecture, be it conflict exams,interviews, small accidents on the way,or lecture sampling. this is completely understandable, the students' lives don't revolve around the lecture. 5) policies should become "strict" after 1st week ---- even if the professor decides to exercise his snobbiness by power of being a lecturer, he should have done so not in the first lecture, but made it clear to the entire class, multiple times during the first week, and started implementing it next week. dismissing the student is such a shallow, "i got the power", type of behavior. extremely disappointing display of insecurity of an NYU MBA professor. 6) urinating? ---- wow the professor goes over his head with his outrageous analogies. no logical sense.