Questions

What do you enjoy about teaching?

What’s the hardest part about teaching?

Would you teach this class if it wasn’t required for your major?

Do you get joy out of teaching the students?

Do you mind the long hours?

Was there a teacher that inspired you to help teach?

For my professor interview I interviewed a form Ta for a class I took called agm 2050 I interviewed Jordan Breland I chose Jordan because out of all the Ta’s that I have had in my time at Clemson, Jordan was one of the only ones that actually took the time to help students and to make sure that students were learning things and not just memorizing details. My reaction to Jordan’s questions wasn’t one of shock or surprise, he actually answered most of the question exactly like I thought he would because he actually believes that the better he teaches these students he is in return making the world a better place. One of the main things that I learned from this conversation with Jordan is that there are good Ta’s and Professors out there that do want to help students expand their knowledge and not just pass the class. It was just nice to see someone that wanted to leave a program better than he found it, Jordan really want to make sure that the students that come through his lab and class actually get something from the experience. My perception of most other faculty is not the best especially with gen ed professors, in my time at Clemson I’ve only had one gen ed teacher that actually cared about my future and my performance outside of his class and that was Andrew Mathis in the English department Andrew really left a lasting impact on me and I try to still try to stay in contact with him my perception of my major and minor specific professors has been that they tend to care a lot more because they know that the students they teach will go on to work in a similar filed and will help advance the topics that they are teaching. I feel like the problem with gen ed classes is that the professors can’t really teach them like they want to the have to conform to a standard or course coordinator so the majority of the professors just read off of pre prepared slides and try to just get students out of their class so they don’t have to deal with them again. The most interesting thing that I learned from this interview was how passionate Jordan was about teaching the students and how caring he actually was.