NYU Professor Scott Galloway: Ouch

http://gildedlimits.wordpress.com/2010/02/23/nyu-professor-scott-galloway-ouch/

by Wump • 16 years ago

80 100 16 years ago

gildedlimits.wordpress.com

CamperBob5• 16 years ago

Quoth the prof: Most risk analysis offers that in the face of substantial uncertainty, you opt for the more conservative path or hedge your bet (e.g., do not show up an hour late until you know the professor has an explicit policy for tolerating disrespectful behavior, check with the TA before class, etc.).

Really? I always heard that it was better to apologize later than to ask permission first, at least when you're doing something as harmless as entering a classroom with a lecture in progress.

Galloway sounds like a butthurt nitwit who missed his calling as a librarian. He probably isn't, of course, but he certainly doesn't take the high ground in his response to the student's perfectly civil letter.

It's true that many doors open in the business world when you make a habit of being early, but it's also true that many doors open when you show up someplace where you aren't supposed to be at all.

barrkel2• 16 years ago

A lot of kids (and they are kids) turn up at third level education (some institutions more than others) with an overweening sense of entitlement. Lessons like this aren't out of place.

houseabsolute3• 16 years ago

Dressing someone down for doing something that is usually tolerated (sampling classes at the beginning of the term) is actually a little out of place in my opinion.

pc• 16 years ago

When you're paying $50+/hour[1], I find a sense of entitlement somewhat justified.

[1] $40k/year / (5 hours/day * 5 days/week * 32 weeks/year)

CamperBob5• 16 years ago

The only sense of entitlement I saw was the professor's. Who's paying who, again?

Urgel• 16 years ago

I can only give anecdotes to back up my opinions here, but at my university, the most respected professors treated the students like adults, or even better, like customers who have paid a lot of money for a valuable service. These professors are respectful to the students, and they get respect in return. They treat students like the mature adults that they are, and the students act as they should.

colomon• 16 years ago

Hey, please leave off with the negative stereotypes of librarians...

CamperBob5• 16 years ago

You know, I struggled with that simile, and it came down to either librarians or priests. :-P Neither one really worked, I agree. Should've gone with "prima ballerina," maybe.

staunch• 16 years ago

Sayre's Law states, in a formulation quoted by Charles Philip Issawi: "In any dispute the intensity of feeling is inversely proportional to the value of the stakes at issue." By way of corollary, it adds: "That is why academic politics are so bitter." Sayre's law is named after Wallace Stanley Sayre (1905-1972), U.S. political scientist and professor at Columbia University.

RyanMcGreal• 16 years ago

"University politics are vicious precisely because the stakes are so small."

-- Henry Kissinger

jessriedel• 16 years ago

Is there someway to interpret this other than the Professor is a arrogant a-hole? What's interesting about this?

barrkel2• 16 years ago

Yes. That the student is an arrogant and inconsiderate a-hole.

But, there's hope for him or her - they may learn better with lessons like this one.

icefox• 16 years ago

how is that interesting?

natrius• 16 years ago

Both of them are. It is reasonable to expect that sampling classes that are scheduled at the same time will be acceptable. However, it's not something students are entitled to. The proper way to respond to such a policy if you insist on responding is to explain your situation and ask the the professor revisit his policy for the beginning of the term in the future.

I hate people.

teye• 16 years ago

This is not a lesson, though it could have served as one had it been written differently.

This is a petty response whose potential value is completely obscured by the author's self-importance and condescension.

larsberg• 16 years ago

Sure --- the professor might also just be tired of getting attitude from mediocre students. It's never the A students who show up late and then complain about getting in trouble for it :-)

The professor overreacted, to be sure. And probably spent too much of his own valuable time on a student who is likely not worth it. A, "Thanks for the feedback." would have been better.

cookiecaper• 16 years ago

You say this like you think "A" students are the important ones.

nitrogen• 16 years ago

It's never the A students who show up late and then complain about getting in trouble for it :-)

No, the A students seldom attend class, show up late for the final exam, leave the exam early, and still get As ;)

Andys2• 16 years ago

I tend to agree with you. All the professor had to reply was: "Sorry, I find it really hard to teach when people walk in late, so that is the reason for the policy." There was no sense of humbleness, or trying to see any alternative point of view on the part of the professor at all.

CoachRufus87• 16 years ago

i like this professor. i trust that the guy learned his lesson too & will remember to show some decorum in the future.

pw0ncakes• 16 years ago

At first, my natural inclination was to dislike you. The professor comes off as an asshole.

On the other hand, the student was taught a lesson in a harmless way. Anyone who wants to go into business needs to be able to handle egotistical assholes who make this professor seem saintly by comparison.

bigiain• 16 years ago

In my opinion (as pointed out by lucifer already) the ""xxxx, get your shit together." and following paragraph are quite likely to be the most important lesson the student will learn in his entire academic career.

The professor wrote a highly memorable obviously personalised letter to the student teaching that.

Without outside evidence of "egotistical assholishenss" from the prof (which _may_ exist), I'd read it as an intentionally exaggerated reaction with a solid grain of cold hard truth.

_bfhp2• 16 years ago

Laptops have "send" buttons? This professor needs to take a class or two.

mikeg8• 16 years ago

clicking send on the email... duh

_bfhp2• 16 years ago

"You are an anonymous student who is now regretting the send button on his laptop."

/on/ his laptop. The intent may be subtle, but I'm pretty sure that's a technical faux pas.

lutorm• 16 years ago

For many stories like these, check out http://rateyourstudents.blogspot.com/

AndrewWarner• 16 years ago

Looks like he'd make a great Mixergy interviewee. I just emailed him my request.

If anyone here knows him please put in a good word for me.

philk4• 16 years ago

The tagline for mixergy is "Online Business Tips from Successful Entrepreneurs". I'm having a hard time imagining how he fits with that or why he'd make a great interviewee.

As far as I can tell, his claim to fame is writing a narky email to someone who's paying ~ $40K/year to learn. What unique or interesting thing does he bring to the table? "Being nasty to your customers" doesn't work as well when you're outside of the sheltered workshop that is academia.

rortian• 16 years ago

They aren't customers, they are students. You can't fail customers.

bmunro• 16 years ago

The professor is the founder of redenvelope.com. Potentially relevant to mixergy, but I'm not sure how interesting an interview it would be.

byrneseyeview• 16 years ago

http://www.portfolio.com/executives/features/2008/01/31/Scot...

He co-founded Red Envelope and ran an activist campaign against the NYT. The combination of high IQ, strong opinions, and borrowed money more or less requires asshole behavior (every minute you fail to convince someone is a minute you're paying interest on. Replace "interest" with "rent," and you can explain New York City.)

bouncingsoul• 16 years ago

I don't see an overall good in the professor's late policy. Awkwardness is usually enough of a deterrent to people willingly being late. This extreme policy punishes those who are unwillingly late (car trouble, emergencies, etc.).

Making a show out of kicking out late students is self-important. The professor extrapolating from this one event that the student is failing at life and should be thankful this professor set him straight indicates more of that attitude to me.

I've been in classes where a late student was told to leave. It was way more distracting than if he'd just been allowed to sit down because it sets off a bunch of pondering and empathy, and you look around you to see what the other students think about the situation, and you're no longer hearing the teacher talk.

rmk• 16 years ago

Solid advice indeed. From what I have heard, the average Stern student is a jackass.

lucifer2• 16 years ago

"xxxx, get your shit together.

Getting a good job, working long hours, keeping your skills relevant, navigating the politics of an organization, finding a live/work balance…these are all really hard, xxxx. In contrast, respecting institutions, having manners, demonstrating a level of humility…these are all (relatively) easy. Get the easy stuff right xxxx. In and of themselves they will not make you successful. However, not possessing them will hold you back and you will not achieve your potential which, by virtue of you being admitted to Stern, you must have in spades. It’s not too late xxxx…"

Now that is an honest to goodness teacher. xxxx is quite fortunate. She/he may or not may recognize this now, but that letter was such a huge favor.

jules• 16 years ago

You mean he learnt that he should avoid this prof at all costs? The student is paying the prof, not the other way around.

telemachos• 16 years ago

You could not possibly be more wrong.

The student pays the university. The university pays the professor. This is not a small detail. Professors (and other teachers more generally) are not personal employees of their students.

Beyond that, the student is paying for an education and - in the case of an MBA - an entrance into a professional world. He or she just got both. I would say this semester, he or she already got value for the investment.

johnrob3• 16 years ago

Imagine how much potential Steve Jobs would have if he got any of that "easy stuff" right.

Perceval2• 16 years ago

Jobs dropped out of Reed not because he wouldn't/couldn't play by the rules, but because he didn't think he was getting value for the top dollar his parents were spending to send him there. He ended up 'dropping in' on classes (like calligraphy), but there's no indication that he just strolled in an hour late and disrespected the professors he was trying to learn from.

snprbob86• 16 years ago

If the student's course sampling story is genuine, then this professor has accomplished nothing more than being a jerk to an engaged student. There is no reason to interpret 1 hour tardiness of a single student as disrespect. Consistent 10 minute tardiness of a large portion of a class or a single disengaged student? Now that's a different story. The only time students entering or exiting make much of a distraction is when the instructor calls them out on it.

However, it is more likely that the student's story is bullshit. In which case he or she shouldn't have bothered to send that email. Both people are at fault here. The student shouldn't have written an email when a simple "I'm sorry, bye." had already resolved the issue. The professor should have assumed good intentions and kept his unsolicited advice to himself. Especially if he was going to be that rude about it. He could have simply ignored the email. That is what my political experiences have proven the safest course of action to be.

greenlblue2• 16 years ago

This just shows that professors are just as retarded as students.

philk4• 16 years ago

I'm betting that the student is currently really grateful that he sampled other classes and hence didn't get stuck with this guy.

MaysonL2• 16 years ago

A fairly good takedown of the prof (including some insights gained from Googling him):

http://christophervilmar.wordpress.com/2010/02/23/galloway-f...

tmsh• 16 years ago

Ironically, this is sort of an interesting b-school case study. s/student's career/business/g. Esp. in New York. What is the marginal utility function for disrespect? Does it vary by environment? Professor? In the immediate context, if the potential reward of a great class that would be missed if the student didn't sample outweighs the potential backlash the student will receive by sampling, it makes no sense for the individual student to forgo the opportunity. However, outside of the immediate context, if it breeds bad habits and a lack of decorum, that can be injurious in the long run.

Actually, I think the appropriate modus operandi in New York is to sample if you want and if a professor tells you to leave or come back in the next class, then do so. But don't take it personally and e-mail. In Silicon Valley and elsewhere, I think it varies.

SandB0x• 16 years ago

While Galloway may or may not be an "arrogant a-hole", I can understand him snapping. (small rant:)

On my master's there are a few people who regularly show up halfway into lectures (leaving the doors swinging and banging), leave work that requires genuine understanding and insight until the last possible second and just generally seem confused by everything. They're intelligent folk, but I don't understand the lack of application at this stage. Why bother coming? It's not like they're starting businesses or fighting crime at night.

I used to be a sloppy student at undergraduate, but for a postgrad degree there's just no point being there unless you want to attack your subject like a rabid dog. Nobody will save you at this point. Nobody cares if you fail.

holdenc• 16 years ago

These two people deserve each other. sighs

yumraj• 16 years ago

Personally, I'm really amazed that some people, both below and in comments to that article, are finding themselves siding with the student.

IMO the prof's email was excellent. He conveyed his point across very nicely without showing even a small hint of irritation or annoyance.

The part copied below, for me, really sums it up. This student is an immature jackass and s/he really needs growing up. S/he first made a mistake and then had the audacity of justifying his/her action. Personally I would hate to have a person like that in my team.

Quoted part: Just so I’ve got this straight…you started in one class, left 15-20 minutes into it (stood up, walked out mid-lecture), went to another class (walked in 20 minutes late), left that class (again, presumably, in the middle of the lecture), and then came to my class. At that point (walking in an hour late) I asked you to come to the next class which “bothered” you.

To the folks who are siding with the student: Find out who s/he was, hire him/her and then lets see what your reaction is when the moron walks in late to meetings, customer calls, doesn't deliver on time etc. and then when you fire him/her, sues you..

johnrob3• 16 years ago

Don't ignore some of the good traits this student is showing, namely the interest to try 3 different lectures and the guts to email the prof. This person could easily turn out to be a star. We can't only focus on one part of the data.

icco• 16 years ago

I totally agree. I currently am a student at a public university, although on the other side of the country, and this behavior in any of my classes would result in the teacher refusing to enroll a student in the class. You are older than 18, grow a pair and learn to respect others time and energy. The quote that I'm hoping the kid really gets is of course "having manners, demonstrating a level of humility…these are all (relatively) easy. Get the easy stuff right".

Hope this kid grows up before he joins the workforce, or hell, attends another day of class, because this behavior is just not OK for an adult.

lallysingh• 16 years ago

For the anti-establishment types automatically siding with students: Remember that this is a total of 4 class interruptions for every other student in the course.

yummyfajitas5• 16 years ago

It's actually only 1 class interruption: the interruption occurred when Galloway decided to stop teaching and instead focus on a student who he felt disrespected him (but probably went unnoticed by other students).

Confusion• 16 years ago

S/he first made a mistake

You can't assert that as truth, because that is the question being debated. I find all the speculation on how this student would behave in corporate life rather amazing: it suggests knowledge of correlations that you can't possibly have evidence for. It's just putting this guy down for the sake of feeling better about yourself.

anatoly• 16 years ago

I'm sorry, but this is ridiculous. The student's behavior was completely justified, and the professor comes off as a self-important prick.

Whenever there are several courses competing for the same time slot, it's reasonable to visit all of them in the first 1-2 weeks of the semester, to understand which one you want to choose. Going just by the course description isn't sufficient, because the quality of the lecturer matters, and varies greatly. For example, you may want to know in advance that the professor is a self-important prick, and take that into account when deciding whether to take their course.

The professors and the students all know that, and late entry during weeks 1-2 of the semester is a normal, expected occurrence. Good manners dictate that the student who walks out in the middle or walks in late sit close to the entrance, to minimize the disruption to others. That's all, really.

Even beyond the first few weeks of the semester, walking in late to a lecture shouldn't be a big deal. The one who's hurt by this is the student who misses the material. The lecturer with a penchant to interrupt their lecture, deliver a brief sermon to the student and expel them are advised to grow the hell up and focus on their teaching.

The comparison with walking late into meetings doesn't have any legs to stand on. The professor is not harmed by the student's initial absence and can proceed with the lecture as planned. Each particular student's participation and feedback aren't essential to the lecture. And meetings that overlap or coincide can be rescheduled, unlike university courses.

euroclydon• 16 years ago

In order to be humble, you must learn to accept humiliation. - Mother Teresa

mreid2• 16 years ago

My wife is a lecturer and had a related experience with a student.

Sometime early in the semester after the course outline had been presented to her students, my wife received an email in which a student put forward his plan on how he was going to game the course to get a pass with the minimum amount of work. It went something like this:

According to the course outline, I plan to just read the poetry and one of the books. If I do essays 1 on the poetry, essays 3 and 4 comparing the book to the poetry, skip essay 3 and get 50% on the exam then, by my calculations I should get a pass. Could you tell me if this plan will work?

I've heard of time management but I'd never seen such a blatant disregard for actually wanting to learn anything in a course before. It didn't occur to the student that telling a lecturer that her course was just an obstacle course to be rushed through as efficiently as possible was a little disrespectful?

greenlblue2• 16 years ago

There is nothing disrespectful here. It is simply a symptom of how universities operate. It's even more blatantly obvious in lower division math classes.

yummyfajitas5• 16 years ago

Universities often to require students to take lots of filler courses, unrelated to their chosen field, taught simply to raise funds for the department providing the filler.

So that english course could easily be nothing but an obstacle in the way of an engineering or business major graduating. And it might be an obstacle which exists solely to get some of the student's money.

mreid2• 16 years ago

> There is nothing disrespectful here.

I disagree.

The point is not that the course might be mandatory for a business student (it wasn't - the student picked it as an elective), nor that he shouldn't make and execute such a plan if he thinks it is in his best interests.

The disrespect was in telling the lecturer, "we both know this is a waste of my time so tell me how to get it over with as easily as possible".

It's like constantly checking your phone while talking to someone in person. Even if you are listening to what they are saying, you are signalling to that person that there are more interesting things than them which demand your attention.

sp332• 16 years ago

I hate to break it to you, but school is just not that important. Getting a degree is a stepping stone (or as you say, obstacle course) to something that people actually want.

darien• 16 years ago

Liberal Arts students don't 'learn', that's why they're liberal arts students. Science students on the other hand...

ShabbyDoo• 16 years ago

"respecting institutions"

This I have never understood. What does it mean to respect an institution? Is this sort of like corporate personhood (which I am not taking a stance on)? Does Harvard demand more respect than the local community college?

The word "respect" is as loaded as the word "fair." One interpretation is simply, "Don't be rude." But, that's not all that the word commonly encompasses. Implicit in most definitions is the difference in social status between two parties. When is it properly "respectful" to call John Smith by his first name instead of "Mister Smith"? When the person addressing John is socially beneath him?

Groxx5• 16 years ago

While I mostly agree with the prof's response in this situation, as the student should've both accepted that his actions may be rejected and should've spoken with the profs first if possible, professors seriously need to get over themselves. Quite frankly, they are not, much less all (despite the apparently common belief), the most important part of anyone's life, and other events do indeed come up.

The part I disagree with is the policy. How is interrupting the class further to turn them away at all helpful? Speak afterwards; you're only turning a minor distraction into a major one. Especially since people who come in late are demonstrating that they are interested enough to arrive and face that glare / lecture, more often in-class than out.

Laziness / shit not together would be far better demonstrated by not going to class at all, but no professors I've encountered take as strong of a stance on that. It's disproportional and insulting to the people who do show up to make a big deal out of it (prior to other attempts to change things), both the late arrivals and the ones who have to sit through the whole fabricated event.

Manners and respect should exist? Absolutely. But that doesn't give professors any additional right to that feeling of entitlement. I've met some real jerks of professors in my time, and they're typically also the worst teachers around. What right do they have to act like that? Oh, right. Tenure (forgive my expletive).

Respect is, and should be, earned. They get a little bonus for being in the teacher role, but for many (note: not saying most, not denying its possibility either) the line "those who cannot do, teach" is true.

In summary: act respectfully. Both of you.

mallipeddi2• 16 years ago

My university had a simple fix for this problem - all lecture halls actually had doors at the back. People who have back-to-back classes in different departments had to take a shuttle bus to commute since the campus is big. They could slip in silently from the back door and take a seat somewhere in the last few rows. No body gets disturbed, and the prof doesn't get offended.

wmorgan• 16 years ago

Why is this story so polarizing? Here's a theory, inspired by a Less Wrong post [1]: some people, thinking back to their time in class, remember how distracting it was for a student to come to class in the middle of a lecture. Others, like myself, barely even noticed.

The one side thinks "how rude of the student to walk in and out of lectures like that!" and the other side thinks "what's the big deal? Just ignore it!" and from there they side with the professor or the student, respectively.

Does this gel with your personal experiences? Is there anyone who sided with the professor but does not find student movement distracting? Or anyone who sided with the student but can't stand it?

[1] http://lesswrong.com/lw/dr/generalizing_from_one_example/

ksraines• 16 years ago

Apart from the tortured logic, the most egregious part of the e-mail was the Prof.’s elementary math error.

Question: A student goes to three classes, each for approximately the same amount of time. He arrives at the third course approximately an hour after the first one started – how long was the student in each of the first two classes?

Professor: 15-20 minutes!

(He mistakenly divided 1 hour by three and tried to account for travel time. Of course he should have divided by two.)

In combination with his grammatical skills, I’d say the Prof needs to get HIS shit together!

But seriously, the student was justified to walk in, but not justified to complain about being thrown out. The Prof's e-mail was bizarre but the closing paragraph was well-spoken.

kellogs• 16 years ago

this conversation depicts exactly the type of professor I hope I never become.

1) the classroom != business meetings----------- in meetings, other people rely on you being there. in lecture, professor just talks - he can give the same lecture to an empty room or to a full room. it doesn't matter

2) student is not responsible to the professor. ----- because the student's presence is not needed to make an effective lecture, the student has no responsibility to check with the TA or something. his presence is for his benefit alone, his absence is to his damage alone.

3) lecture is not affected by walk-ins and walk-outs ---- no student tries to "make a statement" by walking in late to class. it is not disruptive, if they walk in,find a spot, and sit down, quietly. the lecture is not affected, if they are focused, people hardly notice the door opening. it's like somebody coughing in lecture - who hears it, who remembers it? nobody.

4) professor is wrong to interpret this as deliberate action--- there are a million and one reasons to be late for class or go early. in a large class, a small subset will always have some kind of priority over lecture, be it conflict exams,interviews, small accidents on the way,or lecture sampling. this is completely understandable, the students' lives don't revolve around the lecture.

5) policies should become "strict" after 1st week ---- even if the professor decides to exercise his snobbiness by power of being a lecturer, he should have done so not in the first lecture, but made it clear to the entire class, multiple times during the first week, and started implementing it next week. dismissing the student is such a shallow, "i got the power", type of behavior. extremely disappointing display of insecurity of an NYU MBA professor.

6) urinating? ---- wow the professor goes over his head with his outrageous analogies. no logical sense.

NYU Professor Scott Galloway: Ouch

Related Stories