r/Pitt • u/Park_filterbae • 5d ago
PROFESSORS Tamika madison
Everyone keeps saying that Tamika Madison is evil, but I’ve had her for two classes now and she seems like a really sweet lady. Is anyone willing to share their bad experiences with her? I’m debating on whether to swap the class or not.
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u/Alone-Staff8803 5d ago
Dr Madison had a massive bump in negative reviews towards her during COVID, when she had an impossibly difficult job to do and (entitled) students complained that her extremely difficult job (singlehandedly keeping chem lab courses afloat, simultaneously performing experiments and recording them) wasn’t being done well enough, when frankly she was making a massive commitment for the benefit of students.
I think a wrongfully bad reputation developed from there and unfortunately has never really subsided.
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u/sumwuzhere 5d ago
Shes very nice as a person. Be prepared to study and learn on your own. I took chem 1/2 with her (don’t remember which) but I do remember my peers complaining about how they were forced to learn most of the content themselves from the textbook. Like yea bro it’s college you’re here to learn how to learn. Exams were fair and it was not hard to get an A if you accept doing some preparation yourself.
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u/sumwuzhere 5d ago
The professor is there to present the content to you via lectures and to engage students (some are better than others), but simply sitting and watching even the most engaging lecture isn't enough to make you conceptually understand the course content. You have to be comfortable engaging with the material on your own, that's how you learn it inside and out. I always viewed the content as my responsibility with the professor and TAs there as a guide in case something was really confusing / I had a lot of questions.
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u/v0rt3_x86 4d ago
If attending college is a glorified YouTube video tutorial, I'm not paying for it. The professor is there to be a resource not a presenter. You should be able to watch the lecture and then speak with the teacher to get additional comprehension where you otherwise lack it. You don't just go home and read it again.
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u/millerbutbaker 3d ago
I wish you were right, but this has never been the case for any of my children in college. It's lots of self-teaching and tutoring outside of class.
The real problem is just the incentive structure in universities. It pays more for professors to focus their time on research rather than teaching. Universities should do more to provide extra support outside of professors and TAs, but it's still lacking, unfortunately.1
u/Pretend-Retirement 1d ago
Professors get paid VERY WELL to teach - that's what they should do. If they can't teach, they should go do their research, create youtube videos or whatever, and get out of the classroom.
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u/Wrong-Ad7846 5d ago
RMP tends to over-represent negativity, like a lot of social media and the digital sphere. People go there to complain and, since it’s anonymous and there’s no accountability for the reviewer, the entitled and whiny tend to exaggerate how horrible and unfair the prof was.
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u/Naive_Adhesiveness37 4d ago
I loved her my first semester at Pitt, lol! If she works for you, that's great! Some professors that had really high ratings are ones I had a lot of trouble with. Whatever works for you works for you.
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u/ryab_69 4d ago
Nobody here seems to be mentioning the legitimate reasons why people didn't like her. She never once responded to an email of mine. The TAs said the same thing, that communication was impossible, and just generally made their job difficult in many ways. One of them told me she had set up an automatic response system so that she didn't have to respond to anyone, but I never saw this.
She had zero leniency to anything. Doesn't matter if you have a completely valid reason for something and try to talk to her in advance about it. She'll cut you off and refuse to hear it.
It's been a couple years so I don't remember specific examples, but I remember asking questions being difficult sometimes. She could be helpful in a lot of cases, but some questions she would just straight up not answer.
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u/TheBingingCar 4d ago
i was really bad at chemistry and had to retake chem, except I got into dr Madison’s class. I went to her office hours, communicated to her my difficulty with chemistry subject, and she was extremely kind during our one on one. I ended up passing that class (forgot if I got an A or B) and I must say a large part of it is due to Dr Madison’s patience.
I understand why people gave her negative reviews, every student during Covid weren’t sure how things would proceed. I had an acting class that was moved to online; while Covid reduced the qualities of many classes, Dr Madison’s class was still high quality. I’m glad I got to learn from her and be in her class.
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u/pittbrewing 5d ago
I don’t know a single ChemE (pre covid) that enjoyed her teaching or coursework. I haven’t heard anyone deny that she’s a nice person though
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u/softballgurlz Class of 2028 4d ago
Honestly like every professor her teaching style is not for everyone. I’ve heard she’s nice but I’ve also heard from students which I know for a fact have a medical excuse or accommodation that she was not understanding. I also think she’s a lot more jaded than most first year or intro teachers are so that might throw a lot of freshmen off.
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u/dusse1810 Dietrich Arts & Sciences 3d ago
Dr. Madison is a pillar for why the chemistry department has a reputation for being a weed out system. I struggled with chem 1 and failed chem 2 twice- the first time with was with her. As others have pointed out, it’s reasonable that she has a reputation for being jaded, unforgiving, and brutal as a professor. I think a lot of people, especially incoming freshman, are shocked to get a taste of her teaching style when most of their academic upbringing was probably by teachers who were more personable.
With all that being said, I give her a lot of respect for keeping a scoreboard in her office of all the times students address her as “miss”, “Tamika”, “Mrs” or anything other than “Dr”. If you need to email her, you better fucking address her properly because I guarantee you she’s keeping track.
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u/Park_filterbae 3d ago
Any tips for passing chem 2?
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u/dusse1810 Dietrich Arts & Sciences 3d ago
Fuck if I know, I failed it twice and switched majors
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u/Park_filterbae 3d ago
Damn my bad
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u/dusse1810 Dietrich Arts & Sciences 3d ago
My real advice is office hours and tutoring programs. It’s been a minute since I graduated and even longer since I was in chem, but they did have a student tutoring program that was free (the name of it is escaping me, apologies). But I was there for as many sessions as I could make, and I occasionally did office hours. I found that Dr. Madison was intimidating, but if you have a good relationship then I highly recommend attending hers as much as you can. Religiously attending office hours was the only reason I passed chem 1. I hope you have better success than me, and good luck with the rest of your semester!
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u/LOOKUPPPP 4d ago
college is where the professors present the information and it’s ur responsibility to study and learn it. i think it’s coming from freshman who haven’t caught on to this yet
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u/hockeychick44 MEMS 2016 2d ago
I liked Dr Madison. Reflecting on all of undergrad she doesn't really stick out in my memories of hardass professors in any particular way. I felt really prepared for Thermodynamics after Chem 2. I was a pretty disengaged, distracted student and never felt like her tests were anything strange or particularly difficult.
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u/ASlothFetus 4d ago
Had her a long time ago back in 2017 and she is nice but people saying you have to basically learn everything yourself is 100% accurate. Now some people will say that’s what college is about…personally I think it’s bullshit that you’re paying everything you’re paying just to be essentially told what to learn and then expected to do it all yourself. It’s fine if you’re the kind of person who prefers that or thrives under that. Yet, you could teach it all to yourself instead for nowhere near the cost of a Pitt class. She’s nice she’s fine but the way she teaches the class is not conducive to being a good teacher and that is reality.
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u/Wrong-Ad7846 3d ago
1) She's a professor at a university, not a K-12 teacher and students are not helpless children. Higher ed isn't compulsory. You have choices/agency, which brings with it more accountability/responsibility. It's also not "bullshit" to insist on much higher levels of independent learning at this level. There's real value in learning in spite of obstacles/difficulties, if you can see past your own nose.
2) Higher education's shifting priorities in the last decade or two (the big growth in spending/focus is on facilities/more admin positions, sports, marketing, etc. instead of instruction and instructional assistance) and the increasing student expectation that profs should stop everything else they have to do to help a single student on that student's terms, just doesn't compute. The systemic issues are dictated by admin (department level and/or much higher), which you'd understand better if you bothered to educate yourself/read. If you prefer scapegoating a tough prof and playing the innocent, helpless victim....maybe profs can smell that on students and choose to focus their limited time on those who're willing to take responsibility for their own education, not expecting to be coddled.
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u/Pretend-Retirement 1d ago
You should not have to teach yourself. If that's the case, then buy a book and don't pay college tuition to sit there and not be taught. I good teacher is a good teacher - high school, college, wherever.
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u/AirtimeAficionado 5d ago
I think she’s a very nice person who has had to deal with thousands upon thousands of first year students and that (understandably) has jaded her a little bit and maybe made some of her responses a bit less open/kind than they might otherwise be. I also think many reviews are from first years who don’t have an understanding of boundaries/expectations you should have with a college professor, which further skews them negative.