Staff picks haunt Hunter and they should end

From dealing with your daily commute, to realizing you financed for a textbook when there was a free PDF, and trying to figure out how in the world you will survive your college experience, Hunter poses challenges every day.

To add on to that, imagine completing your first enrollment only to find the daunting “staff” pick under instructor.

A greeting from good ol’ no name.

Can you hear your stomach cringe and churn?

Not being able to identify your instructor can leave your plans for the semester in utter ruin. Determining a class schedule based on time throughout the week alone can be a struggle, but many students are faced with gambling on whether or not their professor is adequate for their needs.

This is a huge reality check for the majority of Hunterites who cannot fail another course as well as for responsible students trying to make up or improve their GPA. Tools such as ratemyprofessors.com are rendered useless. They have to re-evaluate class schedules and are unable to assess the professor’s style of teaching. Is he/she tenured? Does the professor post slides? What if he/she has bad breath? Maybe it’s a noob adjunct.

Oh no.

It’s cruel to expect students to be mind readers, let alone be prepared under the circumstances!

Peter Rodriguez, a lower senior, had a “Staff Pick” for a Psychology class.

How did you react when you first saw the word “staff” under instructor?

“Fuck, I hope he knows English.”

What kind of stress were you under during enrollment?

“I thought to myself, ‘Shit, I already took this class and failed once before.’ I tried to get another class with the same section number but I couldn’t when they filled up so fast.”

How was his rating online?

“To be honest, I lucked out. He ended up knowing what he was doing and had above a four on ratemyprofessor. I thought I was going to end up with an adjunct, and they don’t get any benefits – so usually the quality is put down when they teach.”

Why would you think that?

“Think about it this way. Full-on paid professors here get tenure with benefits. On the other hand I remember meeting most of my adjuncts in the lobby or the local Starbucks.”

Freshman Ekaterina Tarsova also had a “Staff” pick, but for an economics course.

Do you believe the “Staff Pick” negatively impacted your performance in your economics class?

“I failed so absolutely. After sitting through hell for the first couple weeks I finally checked his ratings on Rate My Professor and found how poor he really was! It made sense. I couldn’t bear him in class, he had terrible jokes, and ended up being a grumpy old man than a good teacher.”

What advice can you give a lower freshman facing this problem now?

“That’s a hard question. I believe that CUNYFirst is just doing this on purpose to make even more money by putting students in this position, and then forcing them to retake a class like a sick game. When I first enrolled my biggest fear was having a professor who might hate me and give a lot of complicated work. I even had advisors give me advice and nothing helped. I believe if you can make upperclassmen friends who’ve had similar experiences, they could help you avoid the bad professors and that’s pretty much it.

Sophomore Atta Saleh took a Genetics class last Fall during his first semester in Hunter.

What were your first thoughts when you registered and didn’t get a name?

“I figured I would be fine ’cause genetics seemed to be solely based on facts. I thought if I studied right and got in the work everything would be OK.”

What was the outcome and what would you grade him?

“Everything seemed fine then BOOM two weeks in and more than half of the class dropped, I tried to stay up with the work and it was impossible with him. Honestly any professor with less than a three I usually pick staff instead because at the end of the day it it’s a flip of a coin. At this point, I’ll let his reviews online speak for themselves, a 1.9.”