It isn’t unusual for retired politicians to “teach” classes at opportunistic universities. Whether deserving or not, many former “public servants” cash large paychecks for showing up occasionally and imparting whatever wisdom they supposedly have on our impressionable college-aged students. Generally, these classes are at prestigious universities; the more prestigious, the bigger the check.
Recently, one former political heavyweight failed to deliver, and students weren’t happy. One unhappy student took to social media, blasting the instructor for her classes. Columbia student Laalitya Acharya took the class led by Clinton, hoping for insight. The class was on “decision making,” but the student decided the lesson was useless.
The major complaint was the lack of creativity by Clinton, and her political leanings on display. The student said: “I would have really, really hoped that she would bring in some more unique insights… rather than her almost basically reciting passages from her book word for word during lecture.”
The student reportedly echoed the sentiments of the class in that there was a general disconnect between Clinton and the students. She continued: “[There was a] kind of the divide between the students and the professors… I’d hoped that over the course of the semester, [Clinton] would start to loosen up a little bit. We’d get to know more about [Clinton] as [an] individua[l] and really be able to have… a professor/student relationship rather than just having [her] talk at us.”
The complaints weren’t strictly for the content, however. The complaining student noted that Clinton became more of a politician as the semester progressed. She continued: “Usually whenever you start to… get to know [politicians] more on a personal basis, you start to like them a little bit more because they become more humanized. Over the course of the semester, though, I feel like Hillary Clinton became more of a politician than she was at the end.”
After decades on the government payroll, many politicians forget how to relate to regular people. Clinton fully displayed that inability in 2016 when she lost what many considered an unlosable Presidential race to Donald Trump, largely on her unlikability. Clinton apparently hasn’t learned to be more personable since her stunning failure in 2016.
For the unhappy student, she said: “I would have really, really hoped that she would bring in some more unique insights and… more vulnerability and discussion on why she made the decisions that she did, what her insights were, what her thoughts were. So while I don’t regret taking the class, I think there are definitely places where she could have been more honest with us because she wasn’t in her role as secretary of state or politician. She was there as a professor to teach, and I wish that she had embraced that role a little bit more.”
It isn’t the first time Hillary Clinton has disappointed, and if the Democrats have their way, perhaps not the last. Laalitya Acharya and others took the class hoping for a peek behind the veil, and what they got was a failed presidential book advertisement. Clinton has yet to morph from a politician back into a person and may never.
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