An Added Pressure

I walk into class early hoping that I get the chance to speak with the professor. Too late. A student a little older than myself has beaten me to it, and by the time they are done, class has begun and the opportunity fades. Trying to get a word in edgewise seems just as difficult in class as the same older student seems to feel that the class has turned into a private conversation between himself and the professor. And what professor minds that this student, a little more learned, with a little more experience than the others, is spraying the lucky professor with compliments and taking every opportunity to show off the perfect, practiced accent, or the memorized lines of Shakespeare, or simply just admiring the professor's choice of a bow tie? None that I have seen.

Perhaps I have just had bad luck with my classes. I could be overreacting. Maybe I should try to be open minded; after all it could be more my insecurities than anything else, right? I think, however, that I have considered all of these possibilities but I still feel the same way: the presence of graduate students in primarily undergraduate classes is counter productive and all encompassing of the tremendous attention, time and respect professors seem to have for grad students, and grad students alone, comparatively speaking, of course.

Having been an English and French concentrator (among other disciplines in my three years,) I have had more than my fair share of graduate students in classes. Aside from the domineering and negative presence graduate students foster, a mixed classroom such as I have described is not effective because graduate and undergraduate students have different goals, different experiences; they are at different points in their lives and in their education. There is an uneven flow of information and knowledge, only because age dictates it. In my experience at Harvard, graduate student presence intimidates undergraduates, dominates the forum of open discussion and wastes $30,000. Let me add here that "primarily for undergraduates" seems to be a relative phrase for some faculty members.

I have complained often of the inaccessibility of professors at Harvard. Occupied with obtaining tenure, writing books, articles, and campaign speeches, undergrads who may have no actual knowledge of the field of study but are just interested in learning really serve no purpose to the busy professor. Office hours are hard to come by and when one is lucky enough to obtain them, they last about five minutes. This has become, however unfortunate, commonplace. What cannot and should not become regular and accepted is the stifling classroom forum, dominated by graduate students desperate for dissertation advisors, recommendations or employment at the expense of undergraduates. Tolerance should not exist for a classroom where equal opportunity is an obscene joke, and comfort and confidence is but a distant dream.

Harvard professors and section leaders have not quite mastered the technique of having both types of students in a class. Discussion is unfairly dominated, students are often interrupted and the only way to win is to brown nose with the best of them. I don't have time or patience for that, though.

I assume one could argue that this type of classroom setting could be beneficial for the aspiring undergraduate, hoping to one day become the perfect graduate student with the perfect accent. But that would be a futile argument. The classroom would then become like a wrestling match between children trying to get a fair share or more of a mother's attention, a competitive atmosphere where students couldn't learn, too worried with getting at least some recognition of existence.

This issue deserves special attention in smaller departments where classes are flooded with graduates. Isn't it disgustingly ironic that the smaller departments on campus, departments blessed with the opportunity to provide students and concentrators with more attention, suffer more than others? Maybe it isn't ironic. Maybe it doesn't matter what size the class is at all. Maybe I should just get there twenty minutes early.

Nancy Raine Reyes' column appears on alternate Saturdays.