by Siew Cheng Hoe

Created on: June 16, 2009

If you view your college professor as your teacher, and you want to obey your teacher, you are not getting the most from your college professor.

You should view yourself as a paying customer, and your college professor as the service provider. You have to learn to change your viewpoint of the relationship between you and your college professor, from that of student and teacher, to that of customer and service provider, if you want to get the most from your college professor.

As a customer, you have a right to demand good service. When you spend a few dollars on a meal in the fast food restaurant, you expect a hot meal serve within a minute. If the fast food restaurant makes you wait for thirty minutes, and serve you with a cold burger, you will complain to the management for the poor service. You have a right to complain. Customer is always right.

You pay a few thousands dollars to the college. That means you are paying for the salary of your college professor. You have to get the most out of your college professor to make your money worth.

How do you get the most from your college professor?

Do sit in front, and ask questions. Ask difficult questions. Do not ask yes or no question. When the college professor teaches a hard to understand concept, ask him to explain in such a way that a five-years-old kid can understand. Make your college professor explains, using common items as illustration.

You can ask the college professor to apply the theory in real life. Textbook theories are no use to you, if you cannot apply. Ask him to explain how the theory can work in business world, in family, and in other kinds of relationship.

You should ask the questions in class, so that your college professor cannot simply forget the questions. Sometimes your classmates will remind the professor that he has not answered the question.

The simplest question you can ask is why? Do remember to ask this question at least five times in every lesson. Do not believe everything that the college professor says. Ask him to justify the statement.

Even in accounting lesson, you should ask why? Ask why you should debit this or credit that. Ask why you should debit into this book, and not that book. Ask why some accounting rules change. Ask why the accounting rules do not change in earlier years.

If you do not ask the question why many times, you will kick yourself when you see the question in the examination papers, and you do not know the answer.

The next important question is to ask how. Ask your college professor how you can remember the difficult concept. Ask him how this theory comes into prominence. Ask him how workable the theory is.

Ask him how much money or time the company saves when it adopts the new technology. Ask him how a company can decide to adopt or not to adopt the new technology.

When your professor shows you the process flowchart, ask him for real life application. You can remember better this way.

Another way to make full use of your college professor is in your coursework. You need statistic and data to support your argument. Some of the academic writings are not freely available. Your professors will have access to the academic researches. You can ask him to download for you.

Do get the most of your college education. Do let your professor work harder for you.

Learn more about this author, Siew Cheng Hoe.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.