The difference between "Teachers" and "Professors" just cannot be said enough. Despite the fact that our Professors are much more qualified and learned, I am sure that most of us would have preferred the teaching style of the school teachers and also that we would have learnt much more from them than from the gruelling of our professors in college. Even though they used to stare back at us when confounded with doubts and come up with the forever dependable replies such as : " That is out of portions " and " Such Questions will not be asked for your exam". We could always get away with a laugh in the class , the back benchers could enjoy their snacks , listening to cricket commentary or in todays world of GPRS equipped mobiles check the mail , browse the net and what not. Then we were those 'innocent' kids who could always be spared with a good scolding and the familiar " Do not repeat this in the future " accompanied by a an attempted but never threatening cold stare.

When we join college, we do expect our professors to behave a bit differently, for after all they are paid more and we are 'matured' . But the attitude is just too difficult to handle. Especially in a college such as mine when professors are supposed to be the only ones to whom a student should go in case of any problem. They are supposed to be friendly, accommodating and understanding. Out of the some 300 odd faculty here ( I hope the number is close to the actual value ) , an extremely small number would fit the bill above and a tag of students favourite. Most of the professors derive pleasure by laughing at students and pointing out that we do not know stuff which they know by virtue of the 5 or more degrees in their resume. A few of them even try to impart the knowledge that they have gained by stuffing up everything into our heads and get disappointed when we cannot perform in the examinations. Why do they have to try so hard to teach us these things, if we will anyways learn ithrough the next step in our education ? Then there are those chaps who possess so much of an ego that they do not even consider us worthy of standing in front of them , let alone gain knowledge from them. They look at us with disgust as though we are some vermin from the earth. The best of all these highly qualified professionals come forth when a doubt is asked, the answers given just leave us dumbfounded. Most of the times it is their practical experience over so many years that gives an answer for lessons completely defied by theory. In other cases, the answers that they give are just to make sure that we never ask a doubt again, either they give up a huge explanation from one of their Ph D papers or just outright insult us telling that it is a basic concept that we should be knowing( from where God Only Knows ). An answer that would have been recieved only by bitsians : " Please come to my chamber during the Chamber consultation hour" during which there is a 99 % chance that the room would have a lock on it.

What prompted me to write this was a simple incident : In BITS, we have to submit an outstation form when we leave campus to the hostel warden. As it goes with any laid down rule this is never followed and they cant even find out for there are so many places where we could be in .But still there do exist fools like me who make my father send a fax whenever I visit him and make it a point to inform the warden. So, this time around I went to the warden's house at 9.30 to give in the form . He replies "I usually take these only till 9.00 pm .Please come back at 7.30 tomorrow morning and submit". Damn it, he was standing right in front of me and all that he had to was sign the form. Who do they think they are, kings who rule the land ? They are supposed to help us in case of trouble and not keep troubling us for such simple formalities . If they cannot be accommodating, why take up the responsiblity ?


Professors do not have a few extra horns with which they can torment students. But they are trying to frighten students like any raging bull would do to a new inexperienced matador. I would any day prefer learning from a school teacher, who would work hard to clear any of our doubts rather than duping us with high level nonsense. They used to care for us, not treat us like slaves !!

P.S: The hit rate has been simply amazing for me, what magic can some stupid piece of poetry do ! Finally the hit counter is not increasing by just me checking whether there have been any visitors .:)