AIBU to text my professor instead of waiting?

[OnePoisedPearlOtter]

I was on a class trip with around 20 students and our professor, and we were all staying together in an Airbnb. Since there were only a few keys, everyone was constantly opening the gate/door for each other throughout the trip.

I was sharing a room with a classmate I’ve had issues with before, although I’ve always tried to stay polite and avoid escalating things. One evening I asked her if she could open the gate because I had already done it several times that day. She refused and said “it’s your friend so you should do it,” referring to another classmate I had been spending a lot of time with during the trip.
The comment felt strange because this friend had been hanging out with the whole group all week, including having dinner with all of us earlier that same evening. Both me and him were confused by her reaction.

After that she became extremely angry. While I was out of the room, she took back small things she had gifted me earlier that day, and when I later tried to talk to her calmly, she refused. What upset me most was that she contacted our professor privately and, from what I understood later, presented the situation in a very one-sided way. So I messaged my prof and explained my side. My professor ended up calling the friend involved to ask what happened after she read my message, and afterward he told me that the situation sounded very different once he explained the full context.

This became especially frustrating for me because I had never previously complained about this classmate despite earlier incidents, including her once mocking the way I walk when I physically couldn’t run for a bus due to arthritis, and another time yelling at me. I had always tried to keep these conflicts private and avoid escalating them because I'm 25 years old and she is 38.

But after the trip I messaged my professor explaining that I no longer feel comfortable sharing a studio space with her and asked if we could discuss it properly in June. I still feel conflicted about whether I should have just waited until then instead of sending the message earlier and bringing up the previous conflicts too.

AIBU?

You could have asked the same thing in a normal way without phrasing it like that. Saying “adults who struggle to relate to one another due to specific needs” obviously comes across as mocking. You are free to disagree with how I handled the situation, but I do not think speaking to people in that tone is constructive advice.

You really aren’t coming across well here OP!

I wonder what the other woman’s version of this would be.

I really don't care because this is just some random forum. Reddit is far better than this, at least people don't talk to you like this.

I work in this arena; this is how we speak. Sorry you don't like it. I work with struggling adults - by all means come to my place of work and tell me how to say it better, no one I work with thinks it is mocking at all. But you know better apparently? Seriously, come and volunteer with us. The way we speak to and about people are agreed with the people we work with. They lead the way. Thanks for your opinion, I'll ask at work tomorrow how others feel, because it's really important that we get it right. Maybe they will agree with you, maybe they won't. I know English isn't your first language - I work with people whose first language is not English too - but a tone doesn't equate to advice. My words are the advice. You find them unhelpful, that's fine. But you don't know my tone and you are assuming a lot. I was genuinely trying to help, but you've got defensive now, so I will take my help elsewhere. I wish you all the best.

Your professor sounds like she is massively overstepping. It's not her job to sort out petty disputes and fallings out between students. It all sounds absolutely ridiculous, including getting the third person involved.

Maybe just do your work and try to behave decently and politely to others. It all sounds crazy.

I'm very sorry, I think I misunderstood what you said. I genuinely thought it was not a real question.

Because in the UK, a Professor is a very senior person and this would be even more ridiculous than it might be sounding to you OP.

In the US, they call all lecturers / tutors 'Professor' - it doesn't have the same ranking / status / seniority that the title has in the UK.

It is quite bizarre to 'delete your account' and start a new one barely 2 hours after starting the thread . It makes it confusing for people who just want to read the OP's posts in a thread.

I think too much depends on your university culture and your professor's approach for many of us to give sensible advice from our own experience. But if your professor likes being contacted by text and often mediates in disputes, I suppose the only question is whether you should have waited to contact later. In your professor's position, if I was going to involve myself, I'd prefer to have plenty of advance warning.

So with the extra detail you have given, your actions sound okay. Is there any reason why you are having doubts about this?

It really was, because context is very important in situations. Thanks for the apology and sorry if we misunderstood each other. I was trying to help, even if my help comes across as blunt. It's my training of many years! Hard to do online. It was a real question and I thought it was phrased sensitively.

This sounds quite a lot like an issue i had with another girl on a school trip.

When we were 11.

I was honestly surprised by how serious people were being in the comments, calling me 13 and whatnot. I think people are imagining a very formal university setup, but I study at a really small art school where each professor only has around 18–20 students for the whole course, so the dynamic is way more personal. Our professor is quite involved in studio and personal issues and even calls students sometimes, so this is not considered that unusual here.

The only thing I’m actually unsure about is whether I should’ve waited until June to talk about it properly in person instead of sending a text earlier. I still think the additional context mattered, but maybe text was not the best way to communicate it. She told my friend that she'll talk to me as well as the other girl in June, but to me it felt unfair because she did not talk to me directly so I ended up texting.

Ah okay, that actually makes more sense now. I honestly did not realize “Professor” has a much more senior/formal meaning in the UK. In my case it’s a small art school and we only really have this one professor for the course (you can choose your professor and each prof has then 18-20 students), so the dynamic is much more informal and personal than people here probably imagined. And we use professor's first name, never the title. I'm not in the US either.

And regarding the account thing - I deleted my original account because I thought it would also delete the thread. I felt overwhelmed because people seemed to focus mostly on mocking my age instead of understanding the context. I did not realize the thread would stay up even after deleting the account.

Evening, all. We're going to close this thread to new reports now. The OP seems to have deregged and reregged and we aren't sure that any of this is doing any good for anyone at this stage.