that one annoying student

[serenade]

Does anyone else have that one annoying fellow grad student in your department who drives you insane? Monopolizes class discussions? Talks incessantly for no reason? Tries to be 'teacher's pet' in every seminar? Over eager to the point of annoying everyone around him/her? Completely lacks self awareness? For me, "that one" student in my department is also one of my advisor's students and I feel like he hogs my advisor's attention and tries way too hard to impress him. If a professor casually mentions a book during seminar, said student will immediately find a link to the book and email it to everyone in the room...within 1 to 2 minutes of the professor mentioning it. And then interrupt class to announce that he just sent the link. Or he will scan an entire 500 page book and upload it to a shared folder and send the entire class (including professor) multiple emails reminding them that he did that. He is just way. too. eager. And attention-needy. I really think a large part of it is lack of self awareness (though I don't think I'm the one to open his eyes) but part of it is also an inane need for approval from professors (particularly our mutual advisor) and peers. 

I've been trying my absolute best all semester to just ignore him and tune him out. But when I can't get a word in during any seminar or ever have a chance to talk with my advisor because he monopolizes his attention before class, during break, and after class, it just gets frustrating. Has anyone had any experience dealing with a fellow grad student like this? What do you when "just ignoring" it isn't working? 

[knp]

I turn into an ice queen made of knives when some guy transgresses the bounds of social behavior in this particular manner. There's a lot of "Excuse me, I wasn't finished" or "To return to the point So-and-so was making before we got off on this tangent." I am perhaps too pointed in my approach to saying them (the phrase "death glare" has been applied), but they're a helpful strategy for ignoring him. Because you're still ignoring him, after all—you're just channeling the conversation back around to what you wanted to say in the first place.

For more, this is good: http://captainawkward.com/2015/11/05/786-trouble-dealing-with-male-grad-students-who-take-up-all-the-air/

[serenade]

1 hour ago, knp said:

For more, this is good: http://captainawkward.com/2015/11/05/786-trouble-dealing-with-male-grad-students-who-take-up-all-the-air/

WOW...that is spot on. Sounds like we both know Nigel. Many thanks for sharing. 

I agree about it often being males who are the culprits of interrupting females during seminar (I don't mean to imply that there aren't female equivalents who do this or to imply that all males do this or turn this into a gender argument in any way whatsoever), but it does seem to be true from my experience (again, others' might be different). And yep, I totally hear you - sometimes being pointed is just what you have to do. I think there's a difference between "pointed" and "rude" and as long as you're aware of that line, then it's okay to be direct. Because obviously it doesn't look promising that their self awareness is going to kick in anytime soon. 

 

[ExponentialDecay]

I find it exceedingly strange that your professor isn't shutting this sophomoric shit down. Given you both belong to the same advisor, I would wonder about your advisor's ability or desire to advocate for you in your career if he doesn't even facilitate an environment where you can get a word in edgewise. Especially as a female.

[shadowclaw]

Thankfully, I haven't encountered a Nigel yet. However, I did have a fellow student in my masters program who liked to monopolize social time and was constantly asking me for help with everything. She was pretty quiet in class, but could be pretty annoying outside of class. I really enjoyed the get-togethers we had in our department, but it was so hard to get a word in and this particular student seemed to always pick where we ate out. Even if I was just talking to her one on one about something, she would constantly cut me off to talk about herself. The worst part was her constant need to ask me questions about things we went over in class... I wish she would have just asked the professor for clarification on things instead of bombarding me when I was trying to do things like study or work on my thesis. After two years of this, I once asked her if she could do a quick favor for me and put some things in the dishwasher so I didn't have to drive an hour to do it, and she told me she was too busy (even though she was literally across the hall from the lab and it takes five minutes to switch out some dishes).

[Pennywise]

On December 3, 2015 11:25:46 PM, knp said:

I turn into an ice queen made of knives when some guy transgresses the bounds of social behavior in this particular manner. There's a lot of "Excuse me, I wasn't finished" or "To return to the point So-and-so was making before we got off on this tangent." I am perhaps too pointed in my approach to saying them (the phrase "death glare" has been applied), but they're a helpful strategy for ignoring him. Because you're still ignoring him, after all—you're just channeling the conversation back around to what you wanted to say in the first place.

For more, this is good: http://captainawkward.com/2015/11/05/786-trouble-dealing-with-male-grad-students-who-take-up-all-the-air/

Love this

[dr. t]

On 12/3/2015, 11:25:46, knp said:

For more, this is good: http://captainawkward.com/2015/11/05/786-trouble-dealing-with-male-grad-students-who-take-up-all-the-air/

As much as I like this article for a variety of reasons, I would not in good conscience advise three of the first four strategies. Down with the patriarchy, yes, but this is a really tricky power dynamic, and if the professor running the class is important in the dept., using some of this advice may have long term impacts.

[dr. t]

On 12/4/2015, 6:43:44, ExponentialDecay said:

I find it exceedingly strange that your professor isn't shutting this sophomoric shit down.

I think the fact that the adviser hasn't shut it down tells you everything you need to know.

[ExponentialDecay]

1 hour ago, telkanuru said:

I think the fact that the adviser hasn't shut it down tells you everything you need to know.

Really? What does it tell?

 

because, given this is god-knows-who on the internet and they have shared only so much, I can think of about 6 possibilities.

[dr. t]

10 hours ago, ExponentialDecay said:

Really? What does it tell?

because, given this is god-knows-who on the internet and they have shared only so much, I can think of about 6 possibilities.

Sorry, I should have been more clear. There are many possibilities as to why the adviser is not dealing with Nigel appropriately, but the fact that (s)he hasn't provides the information you need to act. Or in this case, not act, because confronting Nigel in front of your professor (particularly since the professor is the adviser) clearly carries way too many professional risks.

The only safe way forward I see here is to recruit an intermediary, preferably a white male from another department who just happens to be in your class, because power dynamics are like that. Yeah, it's a (literally) white knight. But with a power dynamic as lopsided as this, CYA is the name of the game.

[kaykaykay]

On 12/3/2015, 7:15:18, serenade said:

Does anyone else have that one annoying fellow grad student in your department who drives you insane? Monopolizes class discussions? Talks incessantly for no reason? Tries to be 'teacher's pet' in every seminar? Over eager to the point of annoying everyone around him/her? Completely lacks self awareness? For me, "that one" student in my department is also one of my advisor's students and I feel like he hogs my advisor's attention and tries way too hard to impress him. If a professor casually mentions a book during seminar, said student will immediately find a link to the book and email it to everyone in the room...within 1 to 2 minutes of the professor mentioning it. And then interrupt class to announce that he just sent the link. Or he will scan an entire 500 page book and upload it to a shared folder and send the entire class (including professor) multiple emails reminding them that he did that. He is just way. too. eager. And attention-needy. I really think a large part of it is lack of self awareness (though I don't think I'm the one to open his eyes) but part of it is also an inane need for approval from professors (particularly our mutual advisor) and peers. 

I've been trying my absolute best all semester to just ignore him and tune him out. But when I can't get a word in during any seminar or ever have a chance to talk with my advisor because he monopolizes his attention before class, during break, and after class, it just gets frustrating. Has anyone had any experience dealing with a fellow grad student like this? What do you when "just ignoring" it isn't working? 

and when the prof's pet who stole all your ideas becomes the market star....

 

[ExponentialDecay]

15 hours ago, telkanuru said:

Sorry, I should have been more clear. There are many possibilities as to why the adviser is not dealing with Nigel appropriately, but the fact that (s)he hasn't provides the information you need to act. Or in this case, not act, because confronting Nigel in front of your professor (particularly since the professor is the adviser) clearly carries way too many professional risks.

The only safe way forward I see here is to recruit an intermediary, preferably a white male from another department who just happens to be in your class, because power dynamics are like that. Yeah, it's a (literally) white knight. But with a power dynamic as lopsided as this, CYA is the name of the game.

Ah, I see. I agree that if the professor is condoning Nigel's behavior when it is obviously disruptive, then any negotiation has to treat the two as a package deal. My original concern, however, was with the systemic error: if they share an advisor and belong to the same year, and their advisor favors Nigel to this extent, then OP is up shit creek without a paddle. Maybe in the sciences, where you work in a lab moreso than with a person, and where your dissertation matters less than your patents and you can moreover lateral into industry, you can tough it out for a few years, graduate, and forget your advisor like a bad dream (and even so, having a bad advisor creates a lot of serious problems). But in the humanities, it's kind of imperative that your advisor go to bat for you, even when you are not their favorite.

Edited December 8, 2015 by ExponentialDecay

[dr. t]

2 hours ago, ExponentialDecay said:

But in the humanities, it's kind of imperative that your advisor go to bat for you, even when you are not their favorite.

Truth. "Fixing" that, however, is often a long-term project with little chance of success. If you need to undertake it, proceed with caution.

[knp]

I had missed that the professor who was letting this go on was your advisor; that's a big problem!

But, although I've never done this on a graduate advisor, I don't think that my strategy is necessarily confrontational. It can be! Personally, I do sometimes skirt the line of confrontation, since I am a Mean Meaniepants who is just not very nice to poor Nigels (of whatever gender). But I don't think the phrases I'm using have to seem confrontational, and a big part of why I get away with them is (I'm guessing) that I transform back into all smiles and pleasantness as soon as I get the floor back. "Oh, how interesting! But the second part of my point, following up on that,* is xyz." The first sentence might or might not have an edge to it, depending on the context. I personally don't mind if a little bit of bite sneaks into my words, but I obviously DON'T recommend that—by the time I'm saying the second sentence, though, I'm radiating happiness and light. This tends to defuse any hard feelings that either the words themselves or my tone might have initially created, and I think is why this almost always works out for me.

Not only do I view this pattern as not a confrontation, actually, but I don't think it's about Nigel at all. The spark was my frustration with him, sure, but what that classroom situation has shown me is that the professor needs to be prompted to take me and my ideas more seriously. This is how I make that happen. Most professors and bosses with whom I've dealt with this issue have not been committed to sexism or any other reason/-ism that might lead them to listen to Nigel more than the quieter students.** They just kind of passively go along with the social norms that oh yes Nigel is speaking a lot, so we should all listen to Nigel, as he is clearly a serious student. After all, confidence is the primary indicator of intelligence, right? Refusing to be disrupted by Nigel tends to short-circuit the Nigel-centric cycle, and now KNP has moved herself into the category of "serious student." (This transition tends to happen quite quickly, actually—if it's a running battle over the course of the semester, the problem is particularly serious and goes beyond the bounds of my current advice.) KNP will probably not talk as much as Nigel, but when she has something to say, she is not going to be knocked out of contributing it to the conversation. This pig-headed, self-assured, utterly pleasant refusal to get pushed out of the conversation doesn't really disrupt the patriarchy—it moves me from the bottom of the serious/not-serious dichotomy that is so affected by all the noxious assumptions permeating our culture and up into the "serious" category, rather than changing the makeup of the categories. This approach has major pros and cons. It is much less likely to backfire in a way you can't recover from than is actually calling structural factors into the conversation—I am perfectly aware of how well "this mode of valuing participation makes classist/etc assumptions!" does not go. At the same time, I don't think it does much to disrupt the patriarchy, which is itself a bummer. It does do a little, but not a lot. My "oh what were you saying earlier [before Nigel cut you off]?" thing is an attempt at both common courtesy and to make room for other students stampeded by Nigel who, unlike me and Nigel, are not the reincarnated form of a big yellow bulldozer.***

That said, I've never advised this strategy to anybody else before. It works gangbusters for me, but it's a strategy I've created to deal with the raw material of my own personality and instincts. I have a Temper, for instance. At this point, my temper is entirely under control but, in its mildest form, still readily accessible—when I want it to, I can let flash across my face/through the tone of a single sentence. I used to want to get rid of my temper entirely, if possible, but I've come to see it as a huge asset to my experience as a young woman who wants to be taken seriously, both in fancy undergraduate classrooms and at the academic-ish museums where I've worked since graduation. I am easily frustrated, easily made angry—letting a microsecond flash of that shine through before I turn into a big ball of "I'm so pleased we're all listening to the point I'm making" sunshine has been a miracle cure for a lot of bad situations. The temper says "I'm not [ducking] around" and the smile says "but I'm absolutely positive I must have been misinterpreting your tone! I am quite sure you do, in fact, respect me!" I don't know how much, if any of this, would be helpful for others—the blog post makes me suspect that at least a little of it is, which is part of why I typed this, but it was also fun pinning down a reflex that's long been in the back of my mind.

*Almost never actually follows up on that, but even if not, the social grace softens the transition. Like a politician—what, you think I didn't answer the question? I said I answered the question, so...

**If they actively think that women students or poor students or students of color are silly and less worth listening to, this strategy fails me every single time. This, instead, is for dealing with people who perpetuate those same bad ideas just by not having awoken to fighting their own prejudices.

***I think part of the reason I have no sympathy for this is that I have some innate Nigel tendencies I have worked very hard to eliminate, and you know how people are annoyed by flaws that remind them of themselves.

[sackofcrap]

On 12/4/2015 at 9:15 PM, serenade said:

 Monopolizes class discussions? Talks incessantly for no reason? Tries to be 'teacher's pet' in every seminar? Over eager to the point of annoying everyone around him/her? Completely lacks self awareness?

I have a person just like this in my program. Drives me insane in class. And they are blissfully unaware of how annoying they are. I have talked about it with some of my other classmates. We just let it go on because really the person is just being annoying, but isn't necessarily hurting our education in any way. They just talk a lot and always have to answer the question and always have something stupid to ask.

[The Wayfarer]

On 12/16/2015 at 11:33 AM, sackofcrap said:

I have a person just like this in my program. Drives me insane in class. And they are blissfully unaware of how annoying they are. I have talked about it with some of my other classmates. We just let it go on because really the person is just being annoying, but isn't necessarily hurting our education in any way. They just talk a lot and always have to answer the question and always have something stupid to ask.

I'm glad I am not alone in this. To me the worst part is, like you said, how blissfully unaware they are of the whole thing.

Even worse, my particular colleague has the expectation that everyone else in the program is here to serve their needs and will send nonstop emails asking for assistance and when you finally give them some help they don't even thank you. 

[Chiqui74]

If you only have one, then I think you're doing pretty well!

[EdNeuroGrl]

Just at the risk of being that annoying student... Have you considered that they (perhaps not all) have a very real need to do this? I certainly get that boundaries are a thing that everyone needs to learn, BUT I have seen a group of students (who are not engaged and just trying to pass the minutes in class) get really annoyed at one student who is really engaging in the material. There is a difference between being annoying and being counter productive to the learning environment. My request is that you guys consider that not everyone thinks and interacts and understands the same things you do, and you might make progress on altering the behavior with a little compassion and direct friendly feedback.

I mean do you know how infuriating and soul killing it is to have to pretend that you don't care about a thing just because the rest of your class doesn't care about it?

Even as a fellow graduate student, is it not possible to talk with one of these people and explain your perspective? From my experience with "these types" often they aren't receiving social cues like you or I would, they act like that, in part, because no one is giving them feedback in a language they understand. 

*shrug* I get it, but I also get that people can be cruel when the environment is competitive.

 

Can the OP not schedule a private meeting with the advisor or go to office hours, and explain that you are having problems in some space because a student is being disruptive, but you don't know if you should let it go or say something?

Ask for explicit advice... from the prof... about the situation... If the prof thinks it isn't something that needs to be handled they can tell you to forget it, if not maybe they're relatively unaware that this student's behavior is a problem. Coming from a position of being a teacher, it can be really great to have a student like that who is really really engaged in the material, especially if you love the material too, and especially if the rest of the class sits around with dead expressions on their faces the whole time.

 

Just some things to consider, I could be completely off base about the situation, I admit. I do however know what it is like to be on both sides of this problem AND the teacher handling this sort of dynamic.