We’ve all been there. It’s your first class at eight in the morning, you’re still half asleep, and you walk into class only to sit and listen to a professor talk about their dogs, cataracts, or whatever else tickles their fancy for half of what should, in an ideal world, be a lecture. I’m not going to name any names, but I’m sure most of you reading this now have a specific face looming over you in your mind’s eye. This was an unfortunately commonplace instance in, oh I don’t know, high school, but at this level, it should be kept at a minimum.

Aside from the loss of precious time you could have spent in bed in the above example, discursive professors pose many other problems for students. All of a sudden you find yourself knee deep in a situation of catastrophic consequences. Before you know it, you’re given an exam with questions that have no relation to the professor’s recent medical procedures, and sadly no true-or-false trivia section on faculty gossip. At the mercy of your professor’s propensity to tell personal anecdotes, your grade crumbles because for some reason they can’t stay on topic.

Furthermore, listening to a professor use the classroom as a therapy session is not often stimulating to the intellect or useful in mastering difficult material. This only alienates the student from the subject that they are supposed to be learning, and frankly, it’s a slap in the face of education.

I may be taking this a bit too seriously, but isn’t college the time for us to foster our interests and construct a life and career plan that will sustain our future? I don’t know about you, but I’m not willing to sacrifice that for the inane musings of why twins are weird (yes, that actually happened). It’s unfortunate that when today’s education is so pricey, some professors forget how valuable class time actually is.

Not only are we not getting the education we deserve, but we’re not getting the education we’re paying for. If students are already struggling with paying for school, shouldn’t a professor’s expertise outweigh the cost of one less meal per week you’re eating? Spending about $100 on a three-unit class should leave you feeling like you’ve added another layer of knowledge to your academic repertoire, not like your brain is rotting.

I know and appreciate many professors who use personal details from their lives to accentuate or clarify a concept in class. This makes for a friendly atmosphere in which the professor is approachable and down to earth. I love hearing about professor’s kids or funny pets for a couple of minutes to take a mental break and just breathe, but once I’ve watched the hands of the clock trace half an hour, I draw the line.

For students struggling with professors who digress, I suggest that you be honest and upfront when you get the chance to do an evaluation of a professor’s performance. When it comes down to it, students have the right to voice their opinions on whether they’re getting a good education.