I attend a large University and had to drop a math course because I did not understand my chinese teacher AT ALL...

I think it is horrible that you are paying money to get a good education and they are staffing their faculty with people who have very thick accents. However, the universities hire based on qualifications and not ethnicity. Plus, once you graduate, you are going to be in contact on a regular basis with people from all over with all sorts of different accents and speech patterns. Maybe this is is just to prepare you for that. who knows. I still think it is bogus. I had to drop an economics class for the same reasons. Good luck with everything!

I had a similar problem with one professor, who was from Thailand. She really knew the material, but it was hard to understand her when she was speaking, and that affected my understanding of the subject matter. Rather than drop the course, I got to know the professor. We spoke one-on-one, during office hours, and I had her give me extra help. I found that, when I was speaking directly with her, I understood her much better than during class and, the more I spoke with her, the better I understood her.

She knew that her accent made it difficult for students to understand her, and she was speaking as clearly as she could. She also did other things to try to help, like have a lot of in-class written materials and etc. She really actually spoke English quite well, it's that her accent was so very strong that it was difficult to understand her. That got better as I got more used to it.

It's actually frustrating for a student to have a professor that they don't understand, but universities are hiring profs with subject matter expertise, and sometimes that means that their accent is quite strong. I find this more likely to happen with grad students who are teaching, rather than full professors. Grad students are usually newer to the country, so their accents are stronger. It can take some getting used to.

I wish that universities could have teachers who spoke more clearly, but again, they're admitting (for grad students) and hiring (for professors) subject matter experts, and especially in math, the sciences, and tech fields, due to lack of qualified US candidates, most of those are from overseas.

I saw this problem 20 yrs ago when I was in college, hasn't changed a bit then. I don't think much of the practice at all.

I think that they are subject matter experts. They hired based on their expertise in the subject in which they are teaching. What a shame that you aren't able to understand him :(

I attend a middle-size university and I have friends who attend really small universities, and we both have professors that are not fluent in our teaching language. I think that it's normal for a professor to go abroad, so it doesn't bother me much. Focus on your syllabus, borrow books at the library, do not feel ashamed to send your teacher an e-mail about what you didn't understand, ask the other teachers (look in your university's directory).