It’s actually not that uncommon for students to have trouble with their college professors. With giant class sizes, at least early on, professors don’t exactly have the time to devote individual attention to students. And when facing a nameless sea of students, it’s no surprise that they grade papers quickly and without discrimination. But your student may start to feel like a certain professor is singling him out for abuse for some reason. Often this isn’t the case; it’s merely in your student’s head since the teacher probably couldn’t pick him out of a lineup.
However, it could be the case that your kid is not making a mountain out of a molehill, and that a teacher really is going out of his way to give your student bad grades or embarrass him in class. If this is the case, there are a few pieces of advice you might want to give your child.
Examine the situation
If your student is smart he’ll simply try to ignore the situation and make the best of it. After all, not every teacher is going to like him, and he should take some time to consider whether or not he brought the negative attention on himself through his own behavior in class or the quality of his work. If, however, he is doing the assignments as detailed and the teacher is failing him, perhaps it’s time to examine just what has gone wrong in the equation. And there are certain steps that your student will want to take in order to address the issue like an adult.
Make an appointment with the professor
The first thing he should do is schedule an appointment during office hours to speak to his professor privately. He should come prepared with the work in question and a list of items he’d like to address pertaining to why he has been unable to obtain the grade level he’s used to. He needs to ask the teacher to offer specific examples of how he may improve so that his work meets the criteria for the class. The professor should be able to look over the work and offer details of why your student has received particular grades, whether it concerns the technical aspects of essay writing, the accuracy of answers given, or even the depth of insight and personal thought (or lack thereof) offered by your student. If he is unable to answer to your student’s satisfaction then it may be time to take a complaint to the next level.
As a last resort, approach administration
The only problem with approaching a department head or the administration to file a complaint about a professor is that this authority will almost certainly advise your student to deal with the issue himself. Often these people are fairly busy and they don’t have time to get involved in every kerfuffle between a student and a teacher unless there is a serious issue at stake (such as discrimination or harassment, for example). For the most part, they feel that students are going to have to learn how to deal with people they don’t get along with professionally at some point, and now is as good a time as any. This is true whether a student receives an English, biology, or health administration degree. That said, your college student must do what he feels is right, even if that means filing an official complaint. But he must also be willing to deal with the consequences of his actions and take responsibility for his part if he bears any.