I don't buy it. Before you have a knee jerk reaction and take the side of the teacher; I have a first hand experience at that school.

Texas A&M Galveston is not what it sounds like. It is not anything close to resembling a full sized university. I work literally right next to it (two football fields away) on Pelican Island and have been to two classes there. I am a merchant mariner. It is a very small campus that is focused mainly on training merchant mariners and fast tracking them into employment.

Some of these people are already employed and having their education paid for by their employers. Also, many have signed agreements to join the coast guard or are in coast guard programs. The industry and school is very militaristic in nature. The culture of the industry is sometimes brutal, sexist, homophobic, and gross. You have to have thick skin. It employs a very different kind of person. It is for all these reasons that the teachers are extremely rude and think they can do whatever they want.

In one of the classes I took, the teacher used the wrong answer key to grade papers. So, everyone got a terrible grade on the test. The entire classed protested and tried to convince him what he had done. And they could easily prove it. It was so obvious as to be absurd. Instead of regrading all the tests and admitting his mistake, he repeatedly accused the entire class of trying manipulate him. Each of us had to argue with him for our grade. I probably got a 90 or so on the test in reality but only could convince him to change the grade from a 30 or 40 to around a 70. I was happy because I only needed to pass the class and the final grade wasn't noted. It was pass/fail.

But it would have been bad if I had failed because of him. My company was paying for it and I could've lost my job or been reprimanded if I would've failed. Before this I earned a Bachelors at The University of North Texas. In about 16 years or so that I had gone to full-time school, I have never experienced anything close to that.. The same teacher also asked me if I had any idea what I was doing and concluded that I "had shit for brains". No, I didn't know what I was doing because I had never lowered a life boat into the water he was a terrible teacher. I was just trying to learn you know. WTF? I would not recommend going to school there but if you want to be a merchant mariner; there aren't that many options.