Sheldon Rothstein

Sorry folks, but I tried and tried to come up with some catchy heading for my review/critique of Professor Sheldon Rothstein, but all I could come up with was the aforementioned phrase. But when it comes to this professor, "lazy-ass hosebag" fits the bill.

Professor Rothstein is currently 78 years old, and plans to retire in two years or so. As far as I'm concerned, his retirement is a couple of decades overdue. Indeed, he never should have bothered becoming a teacher in the first place. He is a prime example of the uselessness of a college education and of the apathy that exists in college faculty in America.

Professor Rothstein is disorganized, scatter-brained, lazy and exudes so much apathy from his pores that you'd need a dozen cartons of Stridex medicated pimple pads to wipe it all away. He's a tenured professor, which probably goes a long way towards explaining why he is such an inept, lazy jackass of a professor. (His wife works in an admin. capacity at the school, so you've got a two-income family sponging off of our hard-earned state sales and property tax dollars and our hard-earned tuition money.)

SYLLABUS: Professor Rothstein passed out a syllabus that listed the text chapters that he wanted to cover. But that's all it had. No guidance re grading, or anything. The text itself was decent.

ATTENDANCE: Professor Rothstein had a Principles of Microeconomics class right before his Labor Economics class, but that still didn't prevent him from starting our class 5 to 10 minutes late every time, and ending class a good 10 to 15 minutes early, too. IN ADDITION, HE TOOK OFF FOR EVERY JEWISH HOLIDAY IN THE FALL; HE TOLD EVERYONE THAT HE WOULD SKIP CLASS THE DAY BEFORE THANKSGIVING; AND HE WAS ABSENT AT LEAST TWICE FOR UNEXPLAINED PERSONAL REASONS. The fact that he missed so many classes was detrimental to his students' opportunity to learn. I mean, class met twice a week for the 16-week semester. He was absent about 6 classes, at least, which is 3 weeks worth of classes. I have no problem with anyone taking a religious or personal holiday, but he made no effort to give us direction or guidance so that we could continue to work on the material in his absence.

TEACHING ABILITY: NONE. This idiot always starts off each class semester with a 2 to 3 week "review" of Principles of Microeconomics material. Why he bothers I'll never understand, especially since Labor Economics has, as its prerequisite, the Principles of Microeconomics class. Thus, we end up "learning" the material that we signed up for LATE. ALSO, HE SPEAKS AND TEACHES SLOWER THAN MOLASSES ON A WINTER DAY.

EXAMS: Thus, the first mid-term is a joke. The second mid-term suffers from the fact that we're only now begun to learn the class material. But even then, the semester is almost all done when he e-mails us via a "list-serve" that he wants to cover SIX chapters in the last three weeks of class (since the class meets twice a week, that's a chapter a day right up to the final exam). SO, he covers 11 chapters in 16 weeks; it takes him 13 of those 16 weeks to cover the first 5 chapters; and then he rams the last 6 chapters in at the very last 3 weeks. As for grading the exams, this sack of hot air took AT LEAST TWO FULL WEEKS to return the first midterm to us. At least the second midterm WAS returned to us, graded, before the drop date of Friday, Nov. 10, 2000, but that only happened since so many of us complained about not getting back the first mid-term until it was almost time for the second.

FINAL EXAM: The last Monday class of the semester, a bunch of us actually went to class (the rest of the class was a no-show - gee, I wonder why). We complained that there was NO WAY for us to cover all of the 6 new chapters in time to do well on the final. AT THIS TIME, THIS LAZY-ASS ACTUALLY ADMITTED IN FRONT OF EVERYONE THAT HE WAS LAZY, AND THAT THAT WAS WHY HE TAUGHT SO SLOWLY!!!!! And that that was also why he wasn't organized, etc. (You'd figure that, since HE is the ONLY Economics professor at NEIU who teaches Labor Economics, that, after all these years of teaching this same class, that he would have had a schedule, etc., that would have made things flow more smoothly, be more organized. But no. You see, that's too much to expect from a jackass that is protected by TENURE!!!!!) Finally, he was convinced by us to e-mail to us a list of hypothetical questions for each chapter, say 3 test questions from each chapter. From these 18 or so (he actually e-mailed us 21 questions total), he would pick 9 for the Final Exam, of which we only needed to answer 5). SO, we lucked out in that we were able to convince this limp sea-worm to give us preparatory questions so that we could at least review for the Final Exam. HOWEVER, since he KNEW that most of the class wouldn't be able to perform EVEN WITH THE HELP OF THESE TEST QUESTIONS, he included, as part of the 9 Final Exam questions, questions that only asked for definitions, or solving problems that would have been easy for Principles of Microeconomics students!!!!!!!!

HYPOCRISY, ETC.: He would always say how he cared about our learning the material; how he would really like to test us in 6 months to see how much of the material we would remember. HAH!!!! WHAT A FUCKING JOKE!!!!!! This hosebag can't teach!!!!! He also looks down on his students, and has said, to several of us, in an aside, how he just can't help the poor quality of student at NEIU. Gee whiz, just LOOK at the caliber of student with which he has to put up!!!!!!!! HE ALSO RAMBLES ON AND ON ABOUT HIS SUPER-GENIUS RELATIVES WHO WENT TO THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO AND PRINCETON AND HARVARD, blah blah blah. This was quite the inside joke for his students.

SUMMARY: This Bozo is a useless professor. He is the only Economics professor at NEIU who teaches Labor Economics (and Public Finance). You'd think that that would have encouraged him to create a schedule that would organize the class and make everything flow smoothly, but he is such a lazy jackass that he can't even take time out to do this. He likes to make small talk with his students - maybe he likes to portray himself as "one of the kids". But I think that he does it so that he can gauge how pissed off his students are at him. HE IS AN OPEN JOKE AMONGST HIS STUDENTS. THEY LAUGH AT HIM BEHIND HIS BACK, AND WITH GOOD REASON. HE IS LAUGHABLE, AND SHOULD NEVER HAVE BECOME A TEACHER. IF HE LOVES THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO AND PRINCETON AND HARVARD SO MUCH, WHY ISN'T HE SCREWING UP STUDENTS AT THOSE SCHOOLS?????

I think that Professor Rothstein is a waste of time and money. I'm sure that I've forgotten a ton of this hosebag's bullshit and shenanigans that I'd want to relay to you, but I'm sure you get the message. IF YOU ARE GOING TO TAKE THIS GUY FOR ANY CLASS, YOU NEED TO GET TOGETHER A TEAM OF CLASSMATES IN ORDER TO STUDY THE MATERIAL ON YOUR OWN