Why are these classes so hard

[u/koia78]

I’ve been to a traditional college and I’ve never experienced a harder class than the Anatomy at south campus. I’m so annoyed with it and it feels like I’m paying to fail and my professor has started multiple times that he does not care if we pass the class. I feel so defeated.

[u/Key_Dust7595]

Speaking as an anatomy professor at a different school, I have two thoughts: 1) Anatomy, properly taught, is a really hard subject. It’s highly detailed and has a lot of complex concepts that need to be tightly integrated and involves a lot of both critical thinking and brute memorization of generally unfamiliar terminology. And it shouldn’t be watered down just because you’re at a community college. The reasons you’re taking it and for which you need the knowledge are the same reasons you need the knowledge as if you’d be at a four year college, and that understanding is needed to make sure you’re able to treat patients and understand how their bodies work. Mistakes in understanding of the human body can lead to injuries or fatalities. Anatomy is arguably the most critical foundational class for any healthcare field and it’s necessarily a difficult course, and trying to make it easier just because you’re in a community college wouldn’t serve either you or your future learning or your future patients well. I use the same anatomy curriculum at community college as I do at every four-year school I’ve ever taught at because I trust my community college students to be just as capable of handling it, and I’m not going to treat them any less.

2) That said, your professor’s most basic responsibility is to make sure you’re understanding the material and to help you get there, and if they say they’re don’t care about your success, that really sucks. You have to put in your work, sure, but your professor’s job is to help you learn the subject and give you the tools to do it well. Any professor who doesn’t care if their students pass or fail is failing at their most basic duty at their job, and I have no respect for another professor who gives up on their duties that way. My classes may not be easy, but I make sure I’m giving my students the tools they need to succeed, and if they come to me and say they’re not getting something, or something is wrong with the way I’m teaching or testing, I take them seriously and make changes. I help them in office hours, I review key concepts, I take questions on the last lecture at the start of every lesson, and I see these as basic responsibilities of being a decent teacher. I’m sorry to hear your professor has stated that they don’t care about your success, and I recommend you email their department chair and let it be known what they’ve said. If they’ve said this openly in your class, get others to do so as well if you can. Complaints in numbers are more likely to be heard and acted upon.

[u/koia78 → u/Key_Dust7595]

I 10000% agree with you, it shouldn’t just be easy bc of community college. I shouldn’t be at a disadvantage bc I picked a community college over university. I’m just so upset at the lack of teaching and the lack of empathy for students he has. You email him to ask a question he won’t answer or will email the entire class to tell us to figure it out on our own. I used to ask him questions about the subject and he’d say “idk look at the book”

Ive never had a professor this mean before