College is stressful. There are no if's, and's or but's about it. I never realized that it can also be incredibly stressful for the professors, until last Thursday. We were working on practice problems in one of my classes when the professor (who will remain unnamed to protect their identity) completely exploded. He or she went off, completely berating our class in a way I have never seen or heard any teacher do before.
Screaming and failing his or her arms wildly he or she scolded the class about how if "we [students] are not prepared then we will not be allowed to attend class." (Thankfully, I am very well prepared so I did not take any of the tirade personally). As I sat, stunned, while our professor transformed into the Tasmanian devil, I learned two lessons very quickly.
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1. You never know what someone is going through.
My professor had a point, if you are not prepared for class you need to be doing more work. However there was no reason for his or her reaction to be so extreme. There must have been other emotionally taxing things going on in our professor's life, and the class not being prepared was the tipping point that put him or her over the edge resulting in the outburst. Although the class was very quick to judge him or her and call them crazy, I try to give him or her the benefit of the doubt. Most likely there are other stressors in my professor's life and the out-lash was a result of having too much going on at once.
2. You cannot let other people's choices and actions affect how you feel.
Although there probably were a lot of other irritants that lead to the explosion, I also learned you cannot let what other people do dictate how you feel. My professor let the fact that his or her students were not prepared completely ruin their day. Although I am sure it would have been difficult, my professor would not have made a fool of themselves had he or she made the conscious choice to not let the fact the students were unprepared bother them. Instead he or she could have simply given a pop quiz to encourage students to be more prepared in the future. The bottom line is, if you let other people influence your choice to be happy, you probably will live a miserable life.
I am thankful that I was prepared and did not contribute to my teacher's angry outburst. While I am sad that my professor let his or her student's influence his or her emotions so much, I am grateful that I can take such an unfortunate situation and instead of feel disheartened, learn important lessons.
