RateMyProfessor is a fraud!

At the beginning of my first semester at FAU, one of the first things I remember students telling me to do was to go on RateMyProfessors - a Web site that’s supposed to encourage students to rate their teachers — to check out the professors I would have and to get an idea of what their classes would be like.

Well, I checked it out.

It didn’t work.

For those who don't already know, I took an astronomy class last semester and completely hated the class. It wasn’t as easy as I thought, and the teacher, for the most part, couldn’t speak English and could not be understood no matter where you sat in the auditorium.

Most of my friends and the people I know who have taken the class would agree with me that this class sucked and it was a complete waste of time and energy. But when you look on RateMyProfessors this is what it says about my former professor from hell:

“Really easy going teacher, I really loved his lecture and the quizzes and exams were too easy. Too much extra credit in exams,” said an anonymous student.

There is no such thing as "too much extra credit," and that’s when I realized that RateMyProfessors isn't as accurate as I thought it was.

For one, students have different perspectives of a professor. We can’t all possibly have the same opinions about a teacher. That anonymous student loved his class but I completely hated it. Are the ones who love it the only students who know about that Web site?

Second of all, I’m beginning to think that RateMyProfessors is also a way for teachers to promote their classes by writing the ratings themselves and praising their work. For example, everyone who has ever taken astronomy knows for a fact that Mr. Martinez doesn’t speak perfect English and that he makes very obvious mistakes.

Now look at this review of the class on “ RateMyProfessors:

"He is very understanding and will curves the grades when need. He likes to she his kids do well."

Call me crazy, but I don’t think a student would write such a "great" review with such bad grammar. Please...

The point is that RateMyProfessors is not an accurate source of information for anybody to use. But it is even more useless for freshmen because we don’t know anything when we first start classes. We’re freshmen, and we think that Web sites like that are the coolest thing since MySpace. We get tricked into thinking that it actually works.

But if you get really desperate and want to know what a class will be like without using RateMyProfessors, here are some tips to help you out:

1. Plan your next semester’s schedules ahead and pick a random professor that you’d like to take the class with. Then, either sneak into the class one day and see what he/she is like, or personally meet him/her during office hours and try to get a feel for what the class might be like.

2. Ask around, call your friends, talk to random people in the breezeway and ask them if they’ve taken the class that you want to take. Most of the time they will either recommend a teacher or tell you who not to take.

3. If you like surprises, then you can always wait until you go to class, check out the teacher yourself and see if you like him or her. If you don’t, then drop the class before the end of the drop/add period, which is usually the duration of the first week of the semester.

I hope you found these helpful and I wish you all luck with your spring semester schedules. I know I’ll definitely need it.

The Rules of Attendance

Back in my high school days, teachers used to be pretty strict about attendance. We couldn’t be late to class, and we could only miss a certain amount of school days before we were made to go to summer school. The least a teacher could do for an absence was give us a detention.

But now that I’m in college, things are a little different. In fact, they’ve changed for the worse. As it turns out, some courses state that if students miss class more than three times, they fail — meaning the entire course. I find this to be quite absurd.

I feel like I’m back in high school. This whole attendance deal is ridiculous. If I have worked hard in a class and have gotten decent grades on my tests, then there is no reason why I should be punished by receiving an F in a course simply because of missing three days of class.

Of course, not all courses implement the same policy of failing a student due to absences in the class. In my French class, for example, the attendance policy has officially been changed on the syllabus. Students who have more than three absences will have points deducted for each additional absence - which I think is a reasonable policy for students.

But for math, the policy is incredibly uptight. According to the syllabus, a student may only be absent five times. Otherwise, he or she absolutely fails the entire course. No excuses.

I always thought teachers would be less strict about classes in college. Why do they care when we are the ones who are paying for classes and it is our problem whether we go to class or not?

Besides, I don’t think a rule like that even needs to be implemented in college. We’re older now, and we should know better to actually be responsible and go to class. We don’t need rules like that. It actually hurts my feelings that the school would think we are that irresponsible when we’re paying for our own classes.

Of course, I know it’s probably a little difficult for teachers to actually believe that a recent high school graduate would be responsible enough to go to class and not skip. A good reason why they would implement such a rule. But hey, we made it to college; we’re not that stupid.

At least I’m happy that this semester is over. I actually feel accomplished that I made it through my first semester in college. I survived it, I’m starting to lose the freshman 15, and I’m not failing math due to attendance.

I still think that someone should say something about the attendance matter, though. Maybe attendance should not be that big of a deal. Teachers could just gradually deduct points from students' grades whenever they are absent more than three times. Or how about if teachers give extra credit for perfect attendance? Maybe we could all feel a little more motivated to go to class.

The point is that grades should be based on how well we do on tests, not on attendance.

Oh, and by the way... have a happy winter break!

Losing my hair because of college finals

It's finals season and, in case you haven’t noticed, the semester is practically over. I almost survived my first semester in college.

Aside from my mini personal victory, I’m freaking out about finals.

To me, finals are a big deal. They are practically our last chance to do well in a class, and if I don’t do well on all of my finals, my GPA is seriously going to go through an extreme amount of pain.

There is a lot of pressure to do well on a final. If you’re like me and you’re leaving everything to the last minute, there’s even more pressure to study massive amounts of information in a matter of a couple of days.I’m such a mess.

Not only that, but every time I bump into my friends at the library when I’m about to study, they compelled to tell me their final schedules and how freaked out they are, which doesn’t help my situation at all.

You see, things were a tad different in high school.

First of all, finals were important for us, but finals didn’t happen until the end of the school year, specifically during the summer.

Second of all, we still had the same classes the semester after winter break, which meant we still had time to raise our grades before the end of the school year, which took off a lot of pressure from the midterms.

In college, when the semester is over, it’s over. There are no more chances to do better in a class except for the final. I’m already an emotional wreck whenever I think about my astronomy final.

On top of that, the material covered in a college course is a lot more than what the teachers covered back in my high school days.

Since it's been a little tough to take a breather because I'm so stressed out, I figured I'd pass along some tips that have been past along to me.

• Prioritize your studies according to the order of your finals: This is something I find very helpful whenever I have tried to study for finals. The main thing you have to do is to try to study for the first final you are going to take. For example, the first final I’m taking is math... meaning that right now, I’m cramming up all of those logarithm rules I learned last week. The second final I’m taking is French, which I’ll study for during the weekend.


• Ask your professors all of the last minute questions this week: Don’t wait until the night before your final to send your teacher an e-mail and ask him or her for help. If you have questions and you don’t understand something... by all means, ask away!


• Study groups are the "in" thing to do: Get a group of friends together and hit up your local Barnes & Noble or coffee shop. It is an efficient way of learning the material quickly and you get to bond with your fellow classmates.


• Three words: try to sleep: A common misconception with college students — especially freshmen — is that in order to do well on your finals, you have to stay up all night and cram everything up in one sitting. This is not true. Our bodies need rest, and if we just keep working and studying like maniacs, our brains will be so tired that all the information we retained will be gone by the time we start writing out our names on our tests. Finals are important, but so is our health. Make sure you schedule in some sleep.


• Take a deep breath: What’s the worst thing that could happen if you don’t do that well on your final? Try to relax and take breaks between long study sessions. If you’ve paid attention in class, then you should be OK. If not.. well... there’s always next semester.
  

And for your viewing pleasure, watch this:


Good luck with finals!

What a Dorm Life...

As I was recently watching the movie Van Wilder, the story of a college student who is afraid of life after school, I realized how many movies promote the idea that the typical "college experience" involves a curfew-free life of endless partying, a lot of junk food and moving into the dorms. I guess the movies were wrong, because I have yet to experience the on-campus lifestyle — I’m still living at home.

For me, things are a little different. I moved here from Venezuela four years ago, and the cultural differences between my country and this one are very apparent.

For one, the traditional college student in my country lives in his or her parents' house until marriage — not cool. And second of all, if you are allowed to move out, you would typically live in an apartment by yourself without any roommates — simply because having roommates is considered "weirdz" and not a common thing to do. In America, having roommates is the most common way of living for a college student.

The problem is that I’ve grown up in the American culture, and when I graduated high school, I was expecting my parents to just let me go and allow me to live on campus like many other college students.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. Because of the culture differences, I feel like I’ve missed out on a lot of great dorm experiences.

When I was in high school, going to college and moving into the dorms was a big deal. It didn’t matter if the dorms were smaller than a box or if you were going to have to share the bathroom with five other people. The point is that it is an experience in your freshman year of college that you’ll never forget.

But five months after graduation, I’m still at my parents' house with a curfew of 1 a.m., and I still have to deal with a constant drill of questions regarding where I’m going and who I’m going with... how annoying.

For the record, it’s not like I hate living at my parents' house. After all, I don’t pay for rent, I always have nice food on the table, and I have a pool and a Jacuzzi for me to use whenever I want.

The problem is that a lot of memorable things happen while living in the dorms that are good for any freshman’s social life, like memories of staying up all night with a bunch of friends in somebody’s dorm or even going to local school concerts. I feel like living in the dorms completes what I dreamt would be my college experience as a freshman.

Some of my older friends — who have already lived at the dorms — keep telling me that I have to live in the dorms for at least one semester because of the experience. I don’t even think I would care if I had to sleep in a room that’s 10 times smaller than mine or that I had roommates. At least I would feel like I’m finally in college and not necessarily just going to class.

In a way, I’m kind of happy that I still do live at home, because at least I don’t have as many distractions as I would have if I lived in the dorms. I wouldn't study as much, I'd eat a lot more junk food, and I'd go to a lot more parties.

Astronomy- The Most Dreaded Class for a Freshman

Tuesday and Thursday afternoons are when I start complaining. My stomach gets into knots, I suddenly feel sick and I find all kinds of excuses to try to not go to my most dreaded class: astronomy.

When I was registering for classes this summer, I couldn’t decide between all the cool classes that I wanted to take. I distinctly remember trying to choose between French and German, art history and psychology, and of course, astronomy and chemistry.

I chose astronomy — big mistake.

On the first day of class, I was excited to go to astronomy. I couldn’t wait to learn about the planets and go to the observations to look at the stars. Even my parents kept talking about how much I was going to like that class. Well, as it turns out, they were wrong.

And so was I.

It turns out the material is not as exciting as I originally thought it would be and the class gets so bad that people actually leave in the middle of the lecture — something I later learned was normal in college.

Not even in high school did I ever have a class that would make me feel so sick minutes before it. The class that I disliked the most in high school was trigonometry... and even that wasn’t as bad as astronomy.

My trigonometry teacher at least tried to get us somewhat involved in the lecture. She would come up with geeky anecdotes about her weekend and she'd give us free candy during the holidays.

But I guess not everything is bad about my astronomy class — there's always going to be a class in your schedule that you won't like, and the best thing you can do is get the good out of it.

I learned my lesson with astronomy. And next time I choose classes, I will be more careful about what I take. Obviously, I’m not going to like every class that I’m required to take, but I don’t think anything will ever top my experience with astronomy.

To avoid classes like this in the future, I'm passing along some information that was passed along to me.

1. Before you register for any of your classes, make sure you check out Rate My Professor for a description of what your class will be like and what the teachers are like. I should have definitely done that when I had the time.

2. Ask your friends if they’ve had any bad experiences with the classes that you are about to take. My friends warned me about astronomy, but I didn’t listen.

3. If it’s humanly impossible to pay attention in class, then make sure you’re getting As on your online quizzes; they really help out when it comes to your grade.

4. Bring your I-clickers — a lot of extra credit for just pushing a button!

The Stressful Life of a Freshman

10:00 a.m. - Wake up. I want to throw that alarm out of the window.

11:45 a.m. - The parking garage is full and I have 15 minutes to get to my French class. Je deteste le Francais!

2:00 p.m. - I haven’t eaten, I have a test in an hour and a deadline at 5 p.m. Goodbye Einstein’s.

3:30 p.m. - I hate my astronomy class.

5:00 p.m. - I’m stuck in traffic, I’m way past deadline and I haven’t thought about my new blog yet. I guess sleep is out the window tonight. Hello doubleshot espresso.

Whether you’re a freshman in college or whether you’re a grown adult with a spouse and kids, you’re more than likely to experience stress at some point of your life.

Lately, I’ve experienced an excessive amount of stress and I’m only 18 years old. I guess I should expect wrinkles and gray hairs, too.

I’ve never been a "calm" person. In high school, I used to stress out about pretty much everything - ranging from a test or a quiz to who I was sitting with in lunch if one of my friends was sick. Now that I’m in college, I seem to be a lot more stressed out than I used to, and I’m not even taking half the classes that I took in high school, nor am I waking up at 7 a.m. to go to class.

As it turns out, I’m not the only freshman — or student, for that matter — who’s leading the same kind of stressful life as I am. According to a recent study at UCLA in 2006, 30.2 percent of freshmen reported feeling stressed out and overwhelmed by all of their new responsibilities.

So what is going on with us students? College is supposed to be the greatest time of our lives. At the rate I’m going and with the stress that I’m dealing with on a daily basis, college feels like it will be the some of the worst years of my life.

There’s a lot more pressure to do everything 10 times better than in high school: to be a better student and to get a diploma that will hopefully get you somewhere with some kind of career. It seems as though some of us are taking it all a little bit too seriously and forgetting about actually enjoying college.

Sometimes I feel like I can’t even breathe without stressing out. When I don’t have a test that I have to study for, then I’m probably doing homework, and even if I don’t have homework, then I’m probably writing an article that is already past deadline.

Don’t get me wrong, though. I like most of my classes and I like learning the material that I’m taught, and I really do enjoy writing, whether it is for the University Press or for personal reasons. Unfortunately, I just don’t know how to manage my time, which leads me to stress out about everything.

That is the biggest problem with us freshmen: we don’t know how to manage time. Therefore, we’re more prone to stress than more than some upperclassmen who have probably already figured out the system of getting things done on time and not stressing out.

Nobody ever taught me how to manage stress. In high school, most students don’t deal with stress because they’re kids and they don’t really have a lot of things to worry about. But for college students, things are a little bit more realistic and we have to start thinking about our futures and careers. It’s not like we can just get a bad grade on a test, hope to do better on the next one and not really care about it.

Luckily for you, I’ve taken the liberty of jotting down some tips on how to deal with stress from Campus Blues — a Web site that focuses on helping students deal with stress or the "blues" from being away from home for the first time.

1. Exercise — There’s nothing better than going for a run around the park to forget about all your problems.

2. Listen to your favorite music — That’s right, submerge yourself in your favorite song and rock out as hard as you can.

3. Go to a ballgame and scream — Not only are you encouraging your favorite team, but you’re also getting some stress out of your system.

4. Play your favorite video game — It’s Wii time!

5. Make chocolate chip cookies (or just eat the dough) — Chocolate usually fixes everything, or at least it makes you feel a little better.

College is supposed to be fun, so don’t stress out about everything and try to balance your time. Otherwise, you’ll be bald by the time you’re 25 years old. I’m sure you don’t want that.

Partyin' it Up

As a college student, the most fun that we get on a Friday night is going to a party at the nearest college dorm room or apartment. The worst part about Friday night parties, however, is the Saturday morning hangover. This seems to be a common problem that many freshmen encounter: not studying enough and partying too much.

As a freshman, I’ve noticed that I’m slowly becoming what society calls "a party girl." Not only because I’ve been frequenting Friday night parties for the past couple of weeks, but also because, for some reason, I just can’t stop going to them!

In high school, I was never a "party" anything. I went to one high school party, and that was only because my friend was dying to get her hands on some booze and nobody else wanted to drive. Go figure.

But now that I’m in college, I go to parties, clubs and anything that involves a social gathering every weekend. What happened to me in the couple of months that I’ve been here? I’m supposed to be studying... not partying!

In fact, us college kids deal with anything through partying and binge drinking. If you get an A on a test, you go out and party. If your significant other broke up with you, you go out and party. If you’re bored, you party. Whenever we find an excuse, we party. That’s just how some of us roll.

The problem is that partying not only affects your studies and your work, but it also affects your health. (Yes, there are things that are more important than Jell-O shots and playing beer pong.)

According to Healthy Minds, a Web site that specializes on talking about physical and mental health, young people between ages 18 and 25 have the highest percent of binge drinking with a shocking 38.7 percent.

Partying is fun, but how far is too far? It’s not fun waking up the next morning regretting things that you might have done while you were drunk. Or even worse, it’s not fun waking up the next morning without remembering what happened the night before. It's also not fun waking up on a random couch half naked with Sharpie drawings all over your body.

There has to be a balance between partying and school work. But most importantly, there has to be a balance between knowing how much your body can take and how much you drink. Just because you think it’s fun feeling a little dizzy and being completely careless for a couple of hours doesn't mean it's good for your body.

As much as I’m growing to like partying, I’m definitely trying to be careful in the way I carry myself at my social gatherings.

Partying is fun, but death isn’t.

If you’re becoming addicted to the party scene like I am, here are some tips to try to balance your school life with the party life:

1. If you really can’t wait to go that Friday night party, then work your butt off during the week and get your work done before the party! Nobody likes to work while hung over.

2. Try to limit your partying and beer pong play-offs to just one day per week, preferably a Friday or a Saturday night. Don’t pick random days in the week or you won’t be able to stay awake during class.

3. If you party hard, then work hard. Classes and books deserve your attention, too!