Say This NOT That to your Professor

Dominique Book Review Ellen Bremen, Tips for college students

Say This, NOT That to Your Professor: 36 Talking Tips for College Success by Ellen Bremen is really a very useful book for college students.

Ellen Bremen gives first hand tips on how to communicate with your college professor so that you are able to foster a good relationship with them. Having clear channels of communications with the professors would in turn make it easier for one to understand what is necessary to be done to achieve good grade in college.

She pens out how you should be talking to the professor given the different possible scenarios that you maybe in.

The book is divided into these sections

Section 1 : Class Issues Your Professor Won’t Discuss With You (But Wishes Someone Would)

– Parents

– Classroom behaviour and peers

-Grades

– Managing your  assignment/schedule

– Dealing with E-mail/Social Media/Technology

Section 2: Class Issues Your Professor Won’t Discuss With You (And May Not Want You to Know)

An example she gave was tips on  dealing with unfair comments by the professor, Ellen suggests that  you could start off the conversation by thanking the profession for taking time to see you. You can  then express your views about his “harsh” comments which were given on your assignment.

She also suggests that  the student could ask what was wrong with his paper and how to improve on it.  Using this approach would not make the student seem hostile and strain the teacher/student relationship. Acting angry or  the victim may not get your point across to the professor. While dealing with the professor by himself the student is also learning a life skill of negotiation and it would help him in his future relationships with other professors.

Ellen shows the reader how the professor views the behaviour  and actions of students. This gives the reader and inside to how it is “on the other side”.

My thoughts:

It’s a real pity that I didn’t have the opportunity to read such a book when I was in college as it would certainly have come in useful for me.  I wasn’t a Grade A student while I was in collage. Even though I didn’t  get into trouble with professors or fellow students it would be great to know how I could maximize my relationships with my professors so that I could perform better and get a better report card.

I certainly recommend this book to any student who would be entering collage soon or parents of collage going kids.

Disclaimer: I received a copy of Say This, NOT That to Your Professor: 36 Talking Tips for College Success by Ellen Bremen for review purposes. All opinions are 100% my own This post has a Compensation Level of 3. Please visit Dominique’s Disclosure page for more information.