I had a professor who stated (in the first day of every class, mind you) that he was not there to teach, but rather to tell you that all the information is in the book, so read the book. In the class that I had had him for, he said that and proceeded to read the book to us. After someone fell asleep in class, he divvied up the book and made us each present a chapter of the book. On the last week, he gave us an 80-page exam (take home) and said it's due in three days and that he curves the class, do we don't have to complete it, just do better than the majority.

This professor had worked in industry, retired, then decided he would supplement his pension by "teaching". This was the only time I had a truly awful professor. The rest were primarily from industry, excellent communicators, and taught well (at least I learned a lot from them).

The problem is when you have people that want to teach for money, rather than getting money for teaching.

 

I've always viewed college/university/degrees as a "ticket to the dance". Without it, luck and relationships are key to progress. With it, live becomes easier. You can go through the class work like a drone, study what you are told to study and know what you need to know to get a degree. Or, you can be have the fire in your belly to be an engineer and complete the course work as part of your development as an engineer/scientist while you read about science, have technical hobbies, clubs and mentoring/tutoring less educatable people along the way.

The truely good engineers and scientist were born, or raised, or taught that way from an early age. People who simply picked engineering as a major because they were good at math and engineering was the highest paying degree never make good engineers. They are generally not good engineers because they never got the 'feel' of the materials and made estimations/approximations. - never felt the heat from an undersized wire, saw the bend of a pipe when pipehangers were spaced too far, never saw concrete crack and why. If they always rely on books, then they don't really know how to translate that into an undocumented, new adventure. Those are bad engineers.