This is how you should handle your bad seminar tutors

This is how you should handle your bad seminar tutors This post is written by a member of the Debut Student Publisher Network. Read on for  Christines  guide to dealing with bad seminar tutors, whatever form they take: No one told  us how to deal with  bad seminar tutors. If you had a bad teacher at school, meh, there wasnt much you could do but grin and bear it. At university, its a different story. You and your seminar tutor are both technically adults. Youre dealing with them not as childish, naive students, but mature, intellectual grown-ups. Therefore, if  your tutor isnt doing whats right for you, you can absolutely change the scenario. I decided to reach out to people whove had bad experiences with their university tutors to see how they dealt with it. Hopefully, sharing these experiences will help you if you ever find yourself in a similar situation. 1. The not-so-personal tutor Anon, age N/A The experience: My personal tutor met me just the once. It was in my first term at university with 20 other people in the room. When I needed help changing my course, or accessing grades, he directed me to the school secretary. The response: I tried contacting my school about my awful tutor, which was apparently a running issue in the faculty. They eventually sent a survey around, which was used to improve the system. However, my tutor was never pulled up on any of my issues. The advice: There is always a second person to talk to, whether theyre the nice face at the school office, or the other class tutor. Use these people! 2. Wrong priorities Anon, 21 The experience: [My tutor]  told me they didnt have time and werent prepared to make [our appointments]. Apparently they were busy with academic paper submissions and October-December was the hottest time to get published. Their words exactly. The response: I switched out of their course and moved into a different module straight away nobodys got time for that! The advice: Find someone else. Dont waste your time with people that dont work for you. There are as many awesome academics as there are terrible ones and it is up to you to find something that works for you. 3. Ungrateful and unenthusiastic Soph, 21 The experience: [My tutor was]  awful. He was very negative, always telling us that our uni was awful and we should have gone to a better one. He casually mentioned we didnt need to even attend his lectures, as he just read off the PowerPoint slides, He would also use group work done by class members to show bad examples of work yet hardly offer any support. The response: We just got on with the year. The advice: Report them, because at the end of the day you pay for your education. 4. The ghost Charlotte, 21 The experience: In three years Ive seen my personal tutor twice. Despite problems with the marking and grading on my second year exams he still hasnt replied to my multiple emails. I fail to see the point in having personal tutors if they are this disengaged. The response: Tried to continue to email and ask questions but after a continual lack of responses I gave up. Instead, I now ask relevant seminar tutors for advice. The advice: Email the relevant departments undergraduate office and ask for the complaints procedure. 5. Lack of contact Anon, 25 The experience: Research MSc, finished now apart from minor corrections. I met my tutor roughly 5 times in a full year. Spent the first 3 months with no project to work on resulting in a 3 month extension at the end of the year. Due to the lack of contact, I didnt feel I could approach my tutor for advice/feedback in the final thesis. What small requests I did submit were rejected. The response: [I dealt with the situation] badly.  Mostly tried to just work around it, but realistically I should have been more forward in demanding the support I needed. The advice: Make sure you build a connection early, ask questions and follow through on obtaining answers. Dont be afraid to complain to higher ups if they are failing to support you. 6. Mismatched and misunderstood Anon, 21 The experience: I am a person who requires a more proactive tutor, one willing to ask me questions and make sure that I am on track. Unfortunately, my tutor did not notice when things were going wrong for me. I identify as female, but I was placed in an entirely male tutor group. Often, I  felt speaking up and being wrong would make me look stupid. I ended up failing the module that my tutor taught. At the time I also did not know I was autistic, which has made everything make much more sense in retrospect. The response: [Especially] after I was diagnosed with autism, my department transferred me to another tutor. I was really lucky that the department made things work better for me. The advice: Dont be afraid to speak up. If you are having problems with your tutor, talk to them about it first. They may be able to make some adjustments for you, after all, it is part of their job to make sure you are on track. If this still doesnt work, dont hesitate to go over their head and talk to someone else, you can change to a different tutor and if you are specific enough about what you want, your department may be able to work with you. 7. Bad vibes and bias Anon, 21 The experience: I had a seminar tutor who very clearly favoured certain students in the class. I was sadly not one of them, and never felt like I was able to ask this tutor  for anything. The modules I took with this tutor were quite specialised and niche, and I ended up barely passing them. The response: I couldnt do much about the tutor because I had already decided on my modules. Instead I relied on my peers for discussion after class and tried to read all the supplementary material provided. The advice: In hindsight, I should have at least tried to approach this tutor personally. If that hadnt worked, then I would have just done what I did. But the fact that I didnt even try to talk to the tutor because I was so intimidated is something I regret. Based on these experiences, it seems safe to say that the overwhelming advice for if you have a bad university tutor is this:  Talk to someone. Whether its the tutor themselves, another tutor, the departmental staff, or even just your peers, you have to let someone know youre having a bad experience. Thats the only chance youll get at improving your learning opportunities. *Responses have been edited for length and clarity. Download the Debut app and you could totally grab yourself a summer internship  way before anyone else. Follow Christine  on Twitter  @slytherchris Connect with Debut on  Facebook  and  Twitter