3 Tips When Talking to your Professor

For some of you, making an appointment during office hours is not causing you strife. But for many, the idea of signing up to sit across from the person who is deciding your grade is terrifying! Some students will go pretty far distances in order to avoid communication with their professors, and ultimately I have seen this make a negative impact on a student’s ability to perform well in the course.

I have heard a BUNCH of different reasons why students will not meet with their professors. These range from irrational to understandable reasons: “she is evil”, “the information I need to be successful is already in my syllabus”, “she does not care about my grade”, “he won’t help me anyway”, “I should be capable of figuring this out on my own”. My advice to these students is always the same. Students should meet with their professors anyway-especially when the student is not performing well in the course!

Let’s look at this from a bird’s eye view: Throughout nursing school, faculty emphasize therapeutic communication so often! This wonderful skill makes an enormous impact to the care that nurses provide to their patients. I have watched nurses who have mastered this skill diffuse a stressful or dangerous situation with just a few words. Unfortunately, I have also watched a normal behaving, calm patient become instantly defensive or even explosive after a nurse says something that is, shall we say, less than professional. I would be willing to bet that the same nurse who does a poor job communicating at the bedside also did a poor job communicating with their professors. Therapeutic communication is a skill, and what better time to practice it then in nursing school!

In school, the course syllabus should include a lot of details about what will allow a student to be successful in a course. The assignments and their respective percentages towards a grade are all in there. Even in my syllabi, I encourage students to reach out for office hours, ask questions, and I even have a percentage of their grade that is based on their professionalism throughout the semester. I do not, however, include the details of what a student will need to do independently in order to get a good grade in my course. Here is where it should be the student’s responsibility to initiate the conversation with their professors.

I am not promising it will be a perfect meeting, but I will offer some steps to being purposeful and prepared when meeting with your faculty member. Here are three main steps to focus on before your meeting:

1-Be prepared!

2-Know that you have been making a real effort in the course

3-Have specific questions written down to refer to

Let’s give each of these a little more detail:

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1-Be Prepared!

The first thing that a student should be doing at the start of the semester is READING their syllabus, and I mean the whole thing! Not just breezing through it. This gives the foundation for the course. It explains the details of what to expect in the course and how your grade is developed. It will include details about your professor’s availability to meet and how that professor prefers communication. For example, when a student approaches me after class and says “I need to meet with you, when can we do that?”, I already know they have not read my syllabus thoroughly. I write in my syllabus my preference is email for communication (so I can keep 50+ students names and their needs neat and organized!) and I also write in my syllabus the office hours and how to schedule a time with me. I even include a link right in the blackboard shell that allows them to view open office hours and schedule themselves in! This student is not prepared who approaches me, and it is very obvious.

It is worth saying here, that I also see some students create an appointment and then cancel or even worse, not show up! If I could offer one more piece of advice on this-do NOT make an appointment and then chicken out and cancel it. This speaks loudly to professors. (Do I even need to point out the reasons why not to be a no show?)

2- Know that you have been making a real effort in the course

I ask this question to every student I meet with: “How much effort do you think you are putting into the work for my course?”. And let me tell you, even when I do not know the student well enough to read their face, it is very obvious whether or not the student answers this question honestly. Some admit quickly that their effort has been lacking, and sometimes it is for very fair reasons. “I have to work full time hours”, “I am having trouble balancing the work load between my courses” or of course the tears start immediately because the student is missing their child’s hockey game or dance class every week and it is slowly breaking their spirit! I would say these are the most common responses I have seen students share when I ask this question. If this is you, the problem is not the effort, the problem is the lack of organization and preparation and scheduling! To learn more about how to manage these issues, sign up here for my Successful Study Strategies Mini Course and get yourself on track!

Now, if a student says “I have been putting in so many hours for this course and it does not seem to be making a difference”, then my next step is to ask what the student is doing during these hours. So often it is not useful studying strategies that the student is using and so it is essentially wasted time. Don’t do this! Every minute of your time is precious (and that is not just in nursing school!) and it is so important to be purposeful in the study habits students choose to use. What are purposeful study habits? I go over those as well in my Successful Study Strategies Mini Course!

3-Have specific questions written down to refer to

Some meetings I have with students require a lot of me asking the questions. This is ok for me, because I know that the reason the student is sitting in front of me is because they need help, even if they do not know how to ask for it. However, I will tell you some news that is probably not going to shock you: not all professors will do this!

All faculty I have worked with WANT their students to do well. They want them to get good grades and move on to the next course and graduate. However, there are a great deal of professors who have verbalized that they will not go “chasing the student” to get them to complete an assignment or answer an email that the professor wrote about their concerns for the student. This is also true in a meeting. A professor may just say “what can I do for you?”, let the student guide the meeting, and then answer specific questions. If this happens and the student is not prepared with specific questions, then the meeting will be quite short!

Now, if the student has already written down questions, this meeting is much more productive. The prepared student says , “For this paper assignment, I have a rough draft with me. I had a question about answering the #2 prompted question in the assignment. Here is what I have written so far, would you look at this section and let me know if I am understanding correctly?”. Now the student will receive specific, direct feedback.

The same goes for studying strategies. If the student says, “I did poorly on the last exam. I studied about 12 hours. In that 12 hours I re-read my notes multiple times and could recite the information back without a problem but I still did poorly. What recommendations can you make about better study strategies for me to focus on for the next exam?”. This is another opportunity that the student has created for a professor to have to answer directly and specifically what the student should do next in order to be successful.

Having trouble developing these questions? Sign up for my 1:1 feedback sessions and let’s work together to plan for your office hours meeting with your professor!

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The last piece of advice I will give you may sounds cheesy, but it ties in with the idea of practicing using therapeutic communication. If you are the student who is nervous or anxious or dreading this meeting with your professor, I suggest rehearsing what you will say out loud before your meeting. Practice aloud in the car, or use a trusted friend or family member who understands your predicament and will be willing to play the part of the professor. We use this strategy when preparing for interviews, why not apply it to a stressful meeting with a professor?

Implement these steps I have outlined and I know that your meetings with your professors will be much more helpful in aiding your success!

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If you found this information helpful, take a deeper dive into my Successful Study Strategies Mini Course and get the tools you need to build a solid foundation to your study habits!

Like this article? Please let me know in the comments! I would love to hear from you! Let me know what you are doing that is working, what is not working, and if there are other topics you would like to learn more about!