Oh boy.

So, first of all, I hate my US Political Parties professor. I'm sure I've made this clear before, but really, he sucks. First of all, he gives us absolutely no schedule of assignments. I haven't dealt with that since high school, and it makes getting ahead, which I've been trying to do, hard. He ended class once and didn't tell us what to do for the following week, and then got mad that no one read. Last week, he said "read chapter 5." Okay. Done. Read it. Twice. Took notes. Felt prepared for class. Participated. All of that. So he discusses Chapter 5 for all of half an hour, and then moves on to Chapter 6. You know, the one we weren't told to read. It's so annoying. How about organization? No? Not necessary? Garbage.

Rant number two.
He continuously calls the female author of the book "he." Not to sound like an uber feminist, but please don't assume that women can't be adept political scientists. It's infuriating, and I'm also pretty sure the fact that I am one of the few females in the class is the reason that he rarely calls on me, even when I'm waving my hand around in the air like an idiot. But if there's a guy who CLEARLY raises his hand after me, he still gets called on first. It makes me mad. Also, anyone who finds me a man named "Marjorie" wins $1000.

Rant number three.
Busy work, really? Isn't this a graduate class?

Rant number four.
Um. Thanks for just completely regurgitating the text book to us. I'm pretty sure it's totally unnecessary for me to come to class, ever. He literally sits at the front of the room and takes us through the book page by page. I have no clue why I bother reading. I guess I figure I'll get brownie points if I answer the questions without having my text open in front of me, like everyone else. Not that that matters. He doesn't call on me.

Rant number five.
Thanks for telling us the breakdown of our grades. Oh wait, you didn't. I have no clue how much anything is worth.

Rant number six, and the big one.
For next week, we have a 2-3 page paper due. The topic: how has partisan politics framed the healthcare debate? What is your opinion on the issue? Great. That puts me in a really bad position. I think you can all guess my position on health care reform. However, my professor has also made his completely clear, and he doesn't leave much room for dissenting opinions. For instance, today he was complaining that the author of the book claimed that party activists tend to have more extreme views than the average American voter. He was like "I don't agree with that." I said "well, I do. I think that people with more moderate views don't affiliate with parties, or if they do, it's a weaker affiliation, and so they're a lot less likely to want to devote their time and resources to working with a political party. The bulk of the American electorate is relatively independent and moderate, therefore, party activists tend to come from the farther reaches." And he was pretty much like "no. I still don't think party activists have extreme views." And I said "I don't think SHE is necessarily claiming that their views are extreme, just that they're more extreme than the average American, meaning party activists tend to be either more liberal or more conservative." And again, he was pretty much like "no." And other people in the class were backing me up, and he still kept shooting us down. There's no room for dissenting opinions whatsoever. So the question is, do I sell out my views and write the paper that he wants me to write, or do I stick to my convictions and get a lesser grade?

I've never been in this position before. Dr. Twombly always made sure we knew that we'd be graded poorly for bad arguments, not for dissenting opinions. And obviously my grades weren't affected by my political beliefs.

Thankfully, I can argue both side of any issue, so I know I could write a paper defending health care reform and it would be well-informed and well written, but do I actually want to do that? If I knew how much this paper was worth, it would be easier to make that decision, but apparently that's not information I'm privy to.

Ughhh. I'm pretty sure I could teach this class better than him. And in seven years, I will.