Foreign Professors

While talking to both current and prospective students (and parents of both), it’s not uncommon for me to hear a concern about taking a class from a foreign professor.  With current students, the concern usually centers around not being able to understand the professor – either the reason for switching classes or not taking that professor in the first place.  With prospective, it’s more of a non-specific, general concern based on having heard a “horror-story” about something similar.

First, let me say this;  If there is a situation in which, after trying for a few days, a student truly cannot understand what the professor is saying, then it is okay to drop the class and choose another one.  However, most conversations I have with students on this subject deal with the possibility of not understanding, or a not very sincere effort on their part to understand.  Of course, at that point (remember, I’m in academic advising) the overarching priority is an appropriate class with which they are comfortable, and not a lecture from me.  So I help them find what they are looking for, and try to plant a seed for future consideration.  In my experience, not understanding a professor has more to do with the lack of desire to understand, than anything else.  I don’t know if it’s inexperience, closed-mindedness, or what…

Don’t be concerned if many of the professors at your school (or your child’s school) are from other countries.  In fact, you should probably be concerned if they’re not!  It’s a bit ego-centric (or Amero-centric) to think all of the world’s best minds in any subject are American.  And I think we’d all agree we want the best minds teaching our bridge-builders (engineering), medical professionals (the sciences), entrepreneurs (economics, finance), designers (architecture, art, apparel and interior design), educators (health education, elementary and higher education), to name just a few.

It’s always cracked me up to hear my American students complain that their foreign professor doesn’t speak English well – English being the language of a foreign country called ENGLAND! And don’t forget “foreign” includes a bunch of countries for which English is the primary language, and includes people who may have a better command of the language than the average American.

Although it was nearly 100 years ago, my personal experience bears mentioning here.  As an undergraduate, I took two economics classes – from Dr.  Hong and Dr. Saviddes (both of whom had thick accents).  I received “C’s” in both.  It never occurred to me that it could be their fault I didn’t do well.  I always thought it was because the classes were difficult, and I didn’t put enough effort into them!  In graduate school, my favorite professors were from Morocco and India, and yes, it did take a bit of getting used to, but once I was used to the way they spoke, I had no trouble at all.

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