I'm sure he would try to learn Chinese... if he was going to try to get a job in China teaching people at a Chinese language university.
You must have had a horrible college experience or put in the minimum effort. I had a lot of teachers who were absolutely essential to my efforts to master course material.
You are severely underestimating what learning a new language (especially when their first language is so different) is like. I doubt you'll be able to say three words in Chinese without an accent even if you spend three days repeating those words over and over.
I am learning Chinese in college, so HA! However, it is getting ridiculous when the prof has to pause for long periods of time, at an attempt to gather enough words to form a relevant sentence and even then, it makes very little sense. Of all my foreign teachers I have had so far in my first 2 years of college (8), I have had exactly 2 that spoke english well enough for me to understand. One was a Chinese language teacher, the other was an Indian guy who taught geography (however he was more interested in philosophy than geography and the class was a waste of time). I absolutely hate math, so you can imagine how difficult it is for me to learn econ and math from people I cannot understand even at a minimal level. Like I said earlier, I had a math teacher who could not verbalize the language and could only write numbers on the board and point at them.
I think a good teacher could teach math with a whiteboard and a marker without saying a word. A good teacher could train you to be an nth level black-belt in X martial art without ever talking to you. Deaf people earn degrees every year without hearing a word. You can get a master's degree online without ever talking to your profs.
Ummm... it's "whom I can understand", sir. C'mon, now...this is the thread in which I can have a field day with correcting peeps, yours was the first one I caught. I agree that they seems like that.
What's so wrong about this (not that it can be isolated to one nugget), is that it flies in the face of all kinds of data. Longitudinal studies show English Lit. majors having just as good a chance at an upper-level management position as those with a business degree (if such a position floats your boat.) Is the CEO of Intel a business major? No. An engineer, right? No. He has a liberal arts degree, a BA in Econ. I also know boatloads of people who got Lit. degrees, are much much older than Moes, and wouldn't trade it at all. They still don't want to be doing engineering or law or something. They knew what they were about and chose correctly when they were taking classes. Money does not equal happiness or unhappiness. Wanting/needing a different amount of money = unhappiness. Doing something you like, and doing it well = happiness. Before the mandatory "you must not make much money," I'm a DINK who wishes he made a lot less b/c it's only made life more complicated -- taxes, cars, mortgage in the 2nd most expensive housing market in the US, and so on. All of that is crap in the scheme of a good and meaningful life.
All I want to do is make stupid cartoon videos of basketball jokes on the internet for the majority of my life! is that so bad?
Prior to reviewing your post, I had no knowledge of the term "DINK". I must admit that I initially assumed that it meant "homosexual" (not that there is anything shameful about that). Only now, after searching google.com, do I understand it to be an acronym for "Double Income No Kids". This would imply that you are in a childless marriage with a working spouse. And assuming that said marriage was indeed consummated, that would reverse my earlier snap judgment. Congratulations on your success in life. I hope you did not work as hard as I did to get there! Now, as far as English lit majors achieving success in the business world, you will receive no argument from me. However, moe was simply receiving some valuable "uncle raj" advice regarding the smug attitude of a slacker youth. That he became so defensive is not my concern. I have had mentored many young graduates over my lifetime, and my wisdom is typically cherished by young men and women.
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Most professors probably don't really care if you get it or not; particularly for assistant/associate professors who are going up for tenure, every hour they spend preparing/teaching/responding to homework extension requests/talking at office hours is time spent they could be writing proposals. If you're at a Tier I research institute, the department is only going to care that you're bringing in grants, publishing papers, and graduating PhDs. In my experience, the older, tenured professors who have their labs/research groups set up will be more mellow, and willing to help out; or they'll just suck at teaching completely, regardless of English fluency. Again, the prime criterion of a professor's worth is his academic proficiency, not his teaching ability.
