What It Takes to be a Prof?

As a student, we always crib and complain constantly that our profs are pathetic. They don't know anything. What will we learn from them? What is the point of attending class? We ask so many questions among ourselves. Here I try to answer some of them...

I am more of a student who believes in classroom study than self - study. I generally don't prefer to bunk classes unless I am forced to (or sleeping of course). And three years of college has intrigued me more and more that how the interest invoked by school teachers in studies is way, way higher than that by lecturers in college. A simple example would be, a question by a teacher in school would result in a chorus raucus, while in college it is replaced by collective silence. Why should it be so different to teach in a college?

This thought kept crossing me far too many times while my mind wanders aimlessly. I feel, though I may be wrong, that the lecturers or profs we complain about may actually have had other plans of earning their living. But circumstances change and bang! here they are trying to teach us in class. The point is not many today are actually willing to take up teaching as a profession. How many of you are willing to be a lecturer? The job, one feels is monotonous and boring.

I haven't had much of teaching experience. I just taught a few classes of the 'C++' language to the juniors when I was in second year. It was most enjoyable, mainly because I loved the subject. It was my favourite in class XII. The response I got was encouraging to say the least. Then I also realised that it is not enough to know or love a subject to teach it. The willingness to teach the stuff, the push to make the students understand, the enterprise to infuse interest in the subject are also key ingredients to become a lecturer. But most of all, every lecturer should keep in mind the fact that how it was to be a student in his days and how it should have been...