Does that loud student in class who is always asking questions about books you’ve never heard of annoy you? Are you that student? Ever wonder if sucking up to the professor actually helps?

Maclean’s spoke with Jeff Rybak, author of the recently released book What’s Wrong With University: and how to make it work for you anyways, to find out more about how to manage relationships with professors. Rybak graduated in 2006 from the University of Toronto Scarborough. In his role in student politics he counselled students on how to deal with many aspects of university life.

Maclean's: First of all, how do you define an “effective relationship” with a professor?

Jeff Rybak: An effective relationship is when you get what you need. That’s different for different students. Some students never deal with their professor unless they have a problem and that has to work for some people because the system is premised on that. If there are 500 students in a class, then obviously the system is built on the assumption that most of them will never interact directly with their faculty.

It’s okay if they don’t necessarily know who you are, but you don’t want them to remember you for being an idiot.

You need to identify what you want out of university. Obviously professors are a huge part of that institution. Once you know what you want, it will be easy to identify an appropriate relationship with a professor.

M: Should students try to get to know their professors better?

JR: Not every professor. If you are interested in graduate school, absolutely. When you have identified an area that you are interested in pursuing further—and it needs to be something more specific than just English—and there is a professor that is working on that, you want to make sure that that professor knows who you are. Talk to them more often and make sure that you are really interested in what they are doing. It is inherently flattering to a professor if you are interested in what they are working on. It’s not hard to work into a conversation.

M: How can students get the most out of their experience studying with a certain prof?

JR: It varies by different subject. The harder sciences tend to have lab work and tangible research that is going on—things that, in scientific terms, could be called “grunt work.” They need to fill a lab with undergraduate students who can do the day-to-day lab work that is not especially complex, but it is a great in. Getting into the lab is key. Every student who wants to go to medical school knows this, or should know this.

In the softer areas, no professor needs undergraduates to help with researching philosophy. So that can be tougher. Read the undergraduate journals on campus because professors are sure to be involved with reviewing them or have ideas about what is going on with them.

It’s hard sometimes, depending on the area. You can’t necessarily read a professor’s work on metalogic and expect to follow.

M: Do you think that the average undergrad student is reading their professor’s work?

JR: Hell no. Absolutely not.

If you try to be the student that you think everybody is, by doing the set of things that you think everybody is supposed to do, then you’re screwed before you start because there is no one set of things that you are supposed to do.

If you are in a philosophy class and your goal is to get into law school then, I hate to be blunt, your professor’s advanced writings on metalogic are never going to matter to you and it is pointless to pretend that you care. But what you want from that class is a strong grade. If you want to do graduate work in philosophy, then it is a completely different situation.