What to do when struggling with a harsh professor?
I am a first year architecture student in my second semester of school. The first two professors I've had have made my experience so far unbearable. I'm specifically asking for advice about my current professor.
I want to preface this by saying that I fully understand that learning something new is never easy and I expect to face obstacles and criticism, especially in a career like architecture. However, my professor just makes me feel miserable. She is a very smart woman, but everyday I am genuinely baffled by the way she teaches. Instead of being understanding and calmly telling us things that we need to fix regarding our assignments and work, she is straight up just harsh and expects us to have professional level work. She gets extremely impatient when explaining things and she even gets mad and yells at me sometimes. I have overheard another professor tell her that we are only first-years, and she needs to be more understanding. This was when she called a student "unteachable" during only the third week of classes, but that's a whole other story.
It feels like she specifically doesn't like me, though. I put so many hours into our class, and have already lost so much sleep, even though it's only been a month since the semester began. Whenever I try to explain myself or, for example, why I chose to draw something a specific way, she gives me such a dirty look, and just makes me feel stupid every time I talk to her. No professor/teacher has ever made me feel like this, and it honestly feels like it's affecting my mental health. I have been feeling so much pressure because of her. After every class, I walk out almost in tears because of how she makes me feel. I go to sleep with anxiety about class and wake up with anxiety about class. I constantly feel scared to talk to her before our critiques, and I am a firm believer that no educator should ever make their students feel that way.
I feel like I am always thinking about how much easier it would be if I just switch majors, but I know I need to give architecture a fair chance because it is the only thing I have a passion for, and I know I haven't had a good professor that will make me feel good about my work, yet. I just feel stuck as of right now and would like some advice.
Posted Feb 23, 2026, 6:11 AM UTC