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.
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.
20 comments:
Ratemyprofessor has long been a pain in the ass of professors everywhere because they say students complain there without the ability for a professor to retaliate (although that's clearly not the case as evidenced by your article).
There's a larger issue at hand, however: the people who are most likely to write the reviews are people who don't like the class/professor. People just love to complain and when they do they often only tell half of the story.
When I see a negative statement, I think, okay, this person was lazy and got what they deserved and now they're trying to act like a martyr. When you see one person who does that in a sea of otherwise positive reviews, it stands out. However, if three or four people are all saying negative things, it's exemplary of a legitimate problem.
Ratemyprofessor concerns itself with banal ratings of things like "hotness" when what you need to know is:
-------------------------------
1) COMMUNICATION OF INFORMATION:
- Does the professor have an adequate grasp of English
- Does the logic follow
- Is info read directly off slides
- Does the professor answer all questions
- Are the questions answered to satisfaction
-(Perhaps most importantly) at the conclusion of the class do you feel like you've learned anything
2) GRADING:
- How many non-test assignments, if any
- how many papers and what length
- How many tests
- cumulative final or not
- how many questions on average per test
- questions more from notes or book
- how much of the test is essay/fill-in-the-blank
3) SUPPLIES:
- Do you need to purchase a textbook
- Did the professor write the textbook
- If used, do the lectures match up with material from the text
- Are the notes available online
- Are old tests or practice questions available to give you an idea of the questioning style
If Ratemyprofessor had THOSE questions it would be 1000% more effective. But they don't.
Thats so funny-I can't believe thats a real "review". Its funny that you can identify the professor by his bad grammar. I do still think that rate my professor can be a useful tool though. How else are you going to find out if your professor is a hottie?
Myspace has a better professor rating system I've found. The SPOt reviews which can be found on the FAU website are also pretty good indicators (though they are usually one sided: good or bad).
wow alan- you should design your own rating web site! I don't think the people on rate my professor are always there to complain. I've written several positive reviews simply because I really really liked the professor. But like you said Irene, the best method is good old fashion word of mouth or actually meeting the person face-to-face.
We have a large population of second language students. It's not a fair accusation. However, one fair accusation would be that this is not an "easy A" class. If we want to bring FAU out of the 4th tier status and not be an academic joke, we need to take curriculum more seriously.
It's true that FAU does have a number of people who have English as a second language. That's part of the diversity that Brogan always raves about.
To get out of 4th tier, from a student standpoint, is to admit students with better GPA/SAT scores and ensure that they succeed.
We are admitting too many low-achieving students and they're low achieving because they're lazy. They complain instead of making things happen.
You can't sit here and complain that academics are Tier 4 quality and then complain about how hard classes are or how much work you have to do. If you went to an Ivy League school you'd work your ass off... which is partly why their degrees are worth so much.
This may be a Tier 4 school by U.S. News rankings but there are plenty of fantastic professors here.
The problem is when knowledge of the subject doesn't translate well into teaching.
For instance, people complain about the mathematics department but if you look at the training of the FAU faculty, you'll see they earned degrees from impressive places:
Dr. Goldwyn, Harvard
Dr. Kalies, Cornell
Dr. Lubarsky, MIT
Dr. Schonbek, MIT
Dr. Voss, Berkeley
Dr. Zhang, Caltech
Dr. Richmond, UChicago
You know? The professors are not just people swept in off the street. Just because the class is hard and you can't pass doesn't mean the professors are bad.
yes it does- if you fail than that means that your professor has failed you as well
So professors are only good when you pass?
Then professors who pass 100% of students are better than professors that have a pass rate that fits a bell curve, is that what you're saying?
Come on.
Truthfully, if at least half the class is passing, it's your fault for failing a test. If less than half of the class is passing, it's the professor's fault you failed the test.
The whole "student as consumer" mindset is one of the elements leading to the downfall of America as a world leader in education.
Find the best school that thinks you are worth their time and energy, take your classes and actually TRY. Don't expect your professor to do your work for you or try to work the system.
You don't deserve college, you don't deserve a grade above an F and I guarantee that there are more lousy, lazy, useless students out there than there are professors.
Suck it up, princess!
Here we go, another lazy student trying to cut corners and get away with taking "easy" classes--classic consumer mindset. Why don't you just suck it up and deal with the classes on their own terms? Profs that are rated well according to this bizarre system are ones for whom you do the least amount of work to get the highest grade. If that's your definition of a successful education, then you're pretty much setting yourself up for failure for the rest of your life. I can't wait until this lazy ratemyprofessors generation gets a good smackdown in the workplace.
My experience shows that a poor grade in a class usually reflects a problem with the student, and NOT the professor.
Also, I think there's a tendency for students to think that just because they work hard, they'll get good grades. This isn't so: people are just NOT GOOD at certain things. A person who has an inability to grasp mathematical concepts may try and try in a college algebra course and still fail. It may seem unfair, but that's just how it is: if you can't do math, you can't do math.
RateMyProfessor.com shouldn't be taken too seriously. I'm willing to bet that the majority of people who post reviews are people who are angry and looking for revenge...and you only get one side of the story.
As a professor at another institution, I have frequently posted comments on my own RMP page. If students are going to use the site to determine whether I'm a babe or a b*tch, then I'm going to make sure they get a bit more information than that.
That I penalize students who surf myspace and facebook in class.
That I am tough but fair.
That I expect them to work their butts off in my class.
If I can't have my name electively removed from the site (I've tried), then I'll just infiltrate the system.
Choose classes based on what interests you and your schedule and degree requirements. Shopping for profs is childish.
The best professor I ever had was the professor everyone else hated with the fiery passion of a thousand suns. He was incredibly hard and demanding. His tests were nearly impossible. He was an arrogant a**hole. But, he knew his sh*t. I learned more in that class than I ever would have with an "easier" professor.
Before you take RMP as gospel truth, ask yourself: are you in college to learn or to get by? If you are there to learn, who gives a crap if the professor is hot, friendly, and easy? What has anyone ever learned from an "easy A"?
RMP is simply someone trying to make a few pennies off of the tensions and complex relations of students and teachers. To have ever thought it was anything else was a little naive (not that there isn't the possbility of some type of forum which could provide helpful and honest information). RMP is just another opportunity to have real relations commodified.
Teachers are not pushing a product, students are not consumers of education. To subject their interactions to such a dynamic is the ruin of the classroom.
It depends on the college you go to but WhoToTake.com works best for me. I work full time and don't mind tests but don't have time to do much homework.
Even this is not always true:
"When you see one person who does that in a sea of otherwise positive reviews, it stands out. However, if three or four people are all saying negative things, it's exemplary of a legitimate problem."
because if the class contains 400 people and only, say, 2% of the people hate the class enough to complain on RMP, then that makes 8 terrible reviews. And while students do post to pay a professor a compliment, that just happens less so. Such is also the case in feedback cards of hotels, restaurants, etc.
Looks like you just made a clear cut case for students and professors to use SyllabusCentral.com.
RMP should be taken as a grain of salt. I find most students who post negative reviews are the one who should have their heads examine. I was in one of an Engineering class and this student, known to complain a lot of the professor. During one test period, he was caught cheating and the professor threw him out of class (class policy). He complained to the Chair, the Dean and finally wrote a bad review of the professor in RMP. Now, this is half thruth, especially for someone reading the review about the professor in RMP. Didn't the one who founded RMY had a similar situation with his former professor. I called this biterness. Grow up--complainer.
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