How important is it to maintain a good relationship with your professors?

How important is it to maintain a good relationship with your professors?

The rigor of school is stressful as it is with out trying to have a social life. Recommendation letters and networking is obvious, but what other benefits can come from maintaining a strong bond with your professor?

it is very important to maintain a good positive professional relationship with all your professors along the way from community college to your post doc. grad. studies.

As class sizes across the country continue to rise, many colleges and university students are struggling to connect with instructors. As these institutions try to combat some of the potential issues of over-sized classes, or to even further benefit from smaller classes, as a student you should and must strive to build positive working relationships with all your instructors.

Ideally, students should try to develop a close academic relationship with mentor professors, who can use their higher academic rank and knowledge to help you negotiate thru programs, plenty of open opportunities for professional development, and the world of academia during your tenure of student and afterwards when graduating and ready for your 1st big new position or your 1st research project.

Now during your time as a student it is In building positive student-instructor relationships, students can gain more personal assistance, work through course material more effectively, and are ultimately able to perform better in the course. One of the primary benefits of building effective relationships with an instructor is a student’s ability to receive more specific feedback and instruction, whether you are taking pre-requisite or elective courses. Students who establish positive professional relationships with instructors can obtain more insight on how to create a specific course plan for increased progress.

you should meet with your instructors after large assignments or tests are returned. A “mini-conference,” or meeting with an instructor, provides both of you with an opportunity to focus on the finished final assignment, essay, or test. With this idea,it also asserts,this approach may seem time-consuming, it rarely becomes a daunting process but once some of your major problems have been identified and correction methods have been explained, you then begin to use the specific information you have received to self-monitor all your (work).”

Additionally, the more you meet with instructors early in the course, the less time you will need to meet with an instructor later on in the course – as you have already solidified your course fundamentals.
Also, in meeting with instructors individually, you can understand what to focus on for further improvement, which can in turn allow the whole-group class time to run more smoothly and effectively.

In addition to helping you with course work, building positive relationships with your instructor also allows you to foster a positive interaction that can open up the opportunity for dialogue if a disagreement later arises.
Whether you disagree with a designated grade, or disagree with an instructor’s course content or teaching strategies, a strong relationship, established early in the course, can allow you and your instructor to more fruitfully negotiate any potential concerns.

Meeting with your instructors individually is one of the best ways to establish a positive working relationship. Individual conferences and thorough evaluation make it possible to clarify specific concepts that, for a particular purpose, may not have been clear from the text or general classroom discussion.
In meeting for a conference, you are able to ensure that where you are at is on pace with the rest of the class, and may even judge how to make the class more challenging or beneficial by investigating supplemental texts or advanced assignment opportunities. So meeting individually with your instructors also provides the Professor with an opportunity to give positive written and oral feedback to you and even the entire class. When ever you engage in this type of process and receive specific information, you will be able to and can focus on improvement and build on strengths.

The best way to meet with any instructor for a conference or meeting is to meet during the Professor's office hours. You probably aren't going to get very far if you try to talk to your professor immediately before or after class Instead, drop by to see him during his regular office hours after you send him an email to request an appointment. Your professor will be able to devote more attention to the issues you wish to discuss if you email in advance with your concerns to confront him at that appropriate time of his office hours.

Now here is the scope of interacting you need to understand.As undergraduates, students most often interact with professors at a distance during classroom lectures; if professors and undergraduates do interact one on one outside classrooms, they typically do so in brief office visits or elevator conversations. Unlike undergraduate students, graduate students interact with professors much more often.

Mentorships with professors are very important for the academic success of graduate students, particularly when graduate students write their theses or dissertations. Unfortunately, many factors threaten healthy academic relationships between graduate students and professors. These factors include :
(a) competition within departments,
(b) different perspectives and opinions between students and professors,
(c) professors’ forgetting students’ struggles, and students’ misunderstanding professors’ struggles,
(d) and lack of communication, resistance to change, unclear expectations, and potential prejudices on either side.

To avoid any of these issues with potential mentors in graduate school, you can try the following:

Remember that you are the one factor that you can control concerning academic relationships in graduate school.
The most important thing you can do to maintain healthy relationships with your professors in graduate school is to improve your sense of self and your self-esteem.
You can improve your sense of self and your self-esteem by maintaining a healthy social life with your family members, friends, and partners, by setting goals for yourself and rewarding yourself when you achieve those goals, and by being confident in what you have accomplished and how you can contribute to further academic progress.
You can also improve your confidence and sense of self by working on your own communication skills, which will benefit you for your entire academic and professional careers.

If possible, try to find or create academic environments:
(e.g., classrooms, clubs, meetings, support groups, etc.)
that are open to and welcoming of dialogue. You can help create academic environments that facilitate conversation by understanding your professors’ expectations of you, by researching their interests and their classroom and communication styles, and by acknowledging the pressures they face within their own departments. When a good opportunity presents itself, you can also use your improved communication skills to initiate intelligent and informed discussions with your professors.

Healthy mentorships in graduate school can take many forms. You can improve your chances of maintaining healthy academic relationships in graduate school if you remain open to and positive about potential sources of support.And again remember that Ideally, students should try to develop a close academic relationship with mentor professors, who can use their higher academic rank and knowledge to help you negotiate thru programs, plenty of open opportunities for professional development, and the world of academia during your tenure of student and afterwards when graduating and ready for your 1st big new position or your 1st research project.

Now during your time as a student it is In building positive student-instructor relationships, you will and can gain more personal assistance, work through course material more effectively, and are ultimately able to perform better.

Professors are our mentors. Having good relationship with them will only help more that you can ask more doubts to them and get proper guidance. Professors in general do this but with a nicer relationship, it will be more of a warm, friendly and healthy atmosphere for study and discussion.