Graduation not qualification for inept, second-rate teachers

Most graduate students (GS) who teach here usually fall into one of the following two categories: the "gung-ho's," who want to teach you everything they have ever learned, or the"tuition-ho's," who just want to do enough work to get their tuition discount and often have no idea what they're doing. From what I have encountered, it is rare to get a positive learning experience from a graduate student.

The first time I was met with the shortcomings of these "instructors" I was in English 101 during my first semester here. The first thing the GS asked each of us to do was to state our names and the last book we read. We came to a girl who told us that she had read Jack Kerouac's "On the Road" over the summer. Our GS replied: "'On the Road'? I've never heard of that." I almost cried. This idiot didn't know one of the greatest American novels ever written. That's like a math teacher not knowing what a linear equation is.

By my senior year I thought I had learned to deal with these disturbingly amateurish "instructors," but no. I had yet to encounter the most appalling GS, a "gung-ho" - or so the class thought. At the end of September he decided to change the entire syllabus. He "overestimated" our class, telling us that all of the books we bought and all the work we had done was null and void. Maybe he felt that undergraduates need to be spoon-fed everything, but I do not share that philosophy.

There are instances where grad students are essential to the learning environment. For example, in marching band there are usually four graduate assistants at every rehearsal and football game. They help the musicians learn the music and drill moves, and they conduct the basketball and concert bands. These courses would be impossible without their help.

Otherwise, I have learned more from waiters explaining the dessert menu than I have from some of these "teachers." After paying for a course, students deserve more than having an inexperienced whelp baby-sit them for a semester, especially when other sections of the same class are being taught by tenured professors. This "luck of the draw" scheduling is unfair, unprofessional and ruins the reputation of the university.

The saddest part is that USC is too busy cutting corners to give these students more than two days of training before entrusting them with a class of eager minds who are left wondering why they can't have an experienced or even intelligent instructor.