On an average October afternoon at UTSC, lecture hall AC223 bustles with a mixture of quiet anticipation and mid-semester fatigue. Students heave themselves and their heavy backpacks into their seats, and laptops echo as they click open in a scattered rhythm.
With the class packed and everyone already worn out, one student can be heard whispering “The prof just won’t reply to emails,” and a few heads nod. By the time the lecture starts, and students have begun the panic of exam season, one sentiment hangs heavily in the air: professors don’t really care about helping us prepare.
There’s a common belief among students that professors don’t value them, particularly professors who appear primarily focused on their research. “Some professors are incredible researchers but seem like teaching is something they have to squeeze in between grants and conferences,” said second-year psychology and health policy student Caithlyn Jamie Reyes, in an interview with The Varsity. “When that happens, the lectures can feel rushed or disconnected. I don’t blame them, but it does mean teaching quality varies a lot.”
When compounded by everyday student stresses like assignments and deadlines, this sense of a distance between students and professors becomes glaring.
The intimidation factor
I remember being a first-year student, nervously hovering outside my professor’s office, trying to suppress my anxiety long enough to knock. I kept reciting the questions I planned to ask, but it wasn’t the assignment itself that made me nervous — it was the presumption that my professor wouldn’t care about me or my questions.
The biology lecture of over 500 students made me fear that I was irrelevant and unworthy, which made it difficult to participate in course aspects like office hours. Many students I spoke to described a similar sense of apprehension.
First-year medicinal chemistry student Faiza Mahzabeen described how small instructional choices can add to the difficulty level of courses. “One of my professors doesn’t provide any online resources,” she explained. The only way for students to access the course content is through attending the lectures and making their own notes.
Students often feel disconnected from professors, not because the lines of communication don’t exist, but because utilizing them can feel daunting with such large class sizes. Resources like office hours are designed to facilitate one-on-one interactions between students and professors, yet many students are too nervous to even approach their professors — especially in large classes where the professor won’t already know their names or faces.
Some professors recognize this hesitation. Sarah Wakefield, a UTSG professor in the Department of Geography and Planning, thinks that students’ reluctance to interact with their instructors stems from “shyness, and having to make the first move and reach out to someone (usually quite a bit older than you, and sometimes intimidating).”
Feeling intimidated by professors is normal; they’re experts in their field, while we’re just students trying to keep up. But another aspect that can make the dynamic between students and professors strained is when students feel that professors aren’t really interested in teaching them.
Teaching quality and accessibility
At U of T, one of the top research universities in the world, many professors are also researchers, and the courses they teach are often shaped by their research. Many professors thus assign their own articles as course material, which can become awkward when students are assigned to analyze or critique these readings. Students might feel wary about picking apart a professor’s work for a grade to then be determined by that same professor.
Some students don’t mind if professors assign their own texts as required material, while others exercise caution. “I think most professors try to be fair, but it can feel awkward when we’re expected to critique something they wrote,” says second-year psychology and health policy student Jamie Reyes. “Even if they say they’re open to disagreement, you’re always aware that you’re evaluating their work, so it’s hard not to wonder whether your grade might be affected [more subjectively than if you were critiquing something not written by them].”
Contrarily, second-year neuroscience and molecular science student Raisa Farhin has no issue with professors assigning their own texts, at least in STEM courses. “I feel like it actually makes it easier for students to streamline their studying,” she said.
However, some courses are taught by multiple professors, which means that each professor might provide different resources. When one professor mandates a textbook that they wrote, and the other professor for the same course doesn’t, the intentions of the former may be called into question. “It often brings up the question of whether the textbook is actually necessary,” Farhin continued, “or if it is simply being pushed out to students because the prof wrote it, and this can cause students to feel frustrated.”
Farhin’s response illustrates how different disciplines shape how students interpret their professors’ teaching practices. In the humanities and social sciences, students are mostly assessed by assignments that require textual analysis, much of which is based on personal interpretation. Conversely, most STEM course readings focus on objective formulas, facts, and equations, which leaves less room for subjectivity, and thus less perceived room for professor bias when it comes to grading assignments where students apply those formulas.
However, when assigning their own textbooks results in unnecessary inconveniences for students — like additional costs, or nonuniformly mandated textbooks — STEM students may also become wary about professors assigning their own texts.
Insights from behind the lecture podium
I reached out to professors across different departments to uncover how their academic responsibilities influence their teaching styles, and thus their relationships with students. After speaking with a couple of them, it seems that the assumptions students make about professors being uninterested in the success or education of students are misguided, and stem from miscommunication rather than malintent.
This perceived friction between professors and students is the result of both parties navigating a hectic university system that stretches professors thinner than most students realize. Professors do care — but they’re working within an educational structure that makes forming meaningful connections with students difficult.
“I love when students see the ‘forest for the trees,’ ” wrote UTSC biology professor Ivana Stehlik about what she values most in her teaching. “If a student can incorporate course knowledge from several weeks or months in the past into a recent topic… this makes me very happy.”
Stehlik values when students make connections across weeks of material; it indicates that students are taking time to think about course concepts, instead of simply cramming information for quick results, and forgetting a week at a time.
Stehlik also echoed earlier sentiments about how class size can exacerbate students’ assumption that professors don’t care about them. In her smaller courses, she said she gets to know “students’ names, personal strengths and quirks,” which stands in stark contrast to the anonymity that defines large first- and second-year classes.
“Teaching is very hard work,” Stehlik told me. “The ever-increasing enrollment and large class sizes… there is always more to do… at the end of the term [we] are exhausted.”
Her words made me rethink how I interpret a delayed email response or a professor seeming less energetic on a day when I too am half-asleep. While smaller courses give professors more room to connect with students, students in larger classes can be more forgiving of professors who seem too busy to get to know them in depth. Just like we have thousands of essay words to craft for judgment, professors have hundreds of hours of course content to curate and then grade.
Wakefield opined that students often neglect to acknowledge professors as individual people, with different styles and personalities. “[T]here is no one ‘type’ of person who becomes a professor,” she said, “which… means that some people will be more friendly and gregarious, and others will be shy, and some will be more organized or demanding and others less.”
Moreover, Wakefield explained that students may be taught by research stream, teaching stream, or administrative faculty — each balancing different demands and bringing different approaches to teaching.
What students sometimes interpret as indifference is, in reality, something closer to depletion. “I wish students knew how much energy and motivation instructors get from good attendance and lively, friendly student-professor interactions,” Stehlik said. “If only half of the students show up, it is much harder to maintain… enthusiasm.”
“I know it is scary to ask questions, but it is like a muscle which needs training.” To anxious students who fear office hours, Stehlik emphasized that professors genuinely want those interactions too. “Hearing student questions allows me to improve how I deliver course content and do better next year. I thus see my students as partners on a joint learning journey.”
Stehlik’s response showed that their excitement often comes from conceptualizing the learning process as just that: a process, and a joint one at that.
The reality of the U of T structure and its pressures
As Wakefield explained, professors’ responsibilities vary by department and teaching status, and many professors are balancing different academic obligations in addition to teaching. Even instructors who care deeply about student learning are often pushed toward output and productivity over a steady pace or depth of interaction.
At U of T, student-professor dynamics are shaped not only by class size, but also by the university’s intensely research-driven structure. Many first- and second-year courses are taught by research stream faculty whose roles as academics as well as course instructors require them to divide their time in various ways.
This does not mean research stream professors are inherently disengaged — many are deeply invested in teaching. Wakefield expressed that student interaction is one of the most rewarding parts of the job. “Interactions with students, especially students who are genuinely interested in the course material, or who are thinking about their future and want general advice or just someone to talk to: conversations with those students always make me happy.”
At the same time, Wakefield described the cumulative strain of academic labour. “Sometimes it can be stressful, especially if a lot of deadlines are coming at once,” she explained. “Not that different from being a student, really, except I’d multiply the workload by about 10.” While teaching remains a “fun” and meaningful part of the job, it can also become frustrating and discouraging when student disengagement makes professors feel as though their efforts are not landing.
Stehlik noted that many students arrive at U of T unprepared for the shift from the more personable interactions in secondary school, to the less intimate structure of university. “The reality of studying at U of T means that [students] now find themselves as small fish in a large sea of very smart and driven students.”
Recognizing each other’s struggles
Across interviews, a consistent theme emerged: most students and professors want the same thing from each other: mutual understanding. Students want to feel supported and taken seriously, while professors want to feel like their efforts enhance their students’ learning experiences. Yet within a system built on scale, speed, and constant output, that connection often becomes difficult to forge.
A lot of the agitation that students might feel with research stream professors stem not from lack of care, but from lack of visibility: many professors are doing much more work for their students and themselves than students see.
When research, teaching, administrative duties, and other obligations collide, professors become exhausted, as Stehlik and Wakefield have shown. When unanswered emails, alienating lectures, and feelings of intimidation take their toll, students similarly feel overwhelmed.
Part of what Stehlik loves about teaching is that it is never about acquiring a finished product, but involves an evolving process shaped by the circulation of different students, expanding research, and new technologies. “Teaching is perpetually challenging and changing,” she said. “A course or a lecture is never done and perfect, something can always be improved.”
In a system defined by constant growth and acceleration, recognizing that reciprocal effort may be the first step toward cultivating honest and rewarding relationships between students and professors.
