As a graduating senior, my biggest piece of advice for students coming back next year is not to pick a class based on ratings and reviews of that professor on ratemyprofessor.
I have made the mistake of putting off taking this one class required for my major for as long as possible just because she got really bad reviews on ratemyprofessor.com. But after taking her recently I have to say she is one of the best professors I have ever had on this campus. She was extremely helpful in helping me understand the material, and her class wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. In contrast, I took a history class for one of my capstones just because of the excellent reviews he got on ratemyprofessor, but he ended up being the most disorganized professor I have had on this campus. He never once gave a heads up on assignments that were due at the beginning of class, which caused me a lot of stress when I had to do a paper at the very last minute. I ended up getting a C in both classes, but I have to say the one I took with the professor who got negative reviews was far easier.
I remember during SOAR orientation one of the advisers telling me not to pick classes based on what I read on ratemyprofessor because they are written mostly by students who don't do the work. Looking back, I'm pretty sure he was right. The professor I took that got bad reviews would not take homework assignments after the first ten minutes of class, so my guess is that a lot of the students that complained about her online were the ones who came to class late or the ones who didn't do the homework at all. Thats what makes ratemyprofessor so unreliable, the fact that you don't know if the person writing the review is someone who gets straight As or straight Fs.
My advice to students is this: if you are trying to decide which classes to take for the fall, don't google ratemyprofessor. Instead, ask a reliable friend or classmate about the professor, someone who gets decent grades and always shows up to class. Because taking or not taking a class based on a classmate or friends recommendation is a much smarter decision than based on a review written by someone who might have dropped out of school long ago.
I have made the mistake of putting off taking this one class required for my major for as long as possible just because she got really bad reviews on ratemyprofessor.com. But after taking her recently I have to say she is one of the best professors I have ever had on this campus. She was extremely helpful in helping me understand the material, and her class wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. In contrast, I took a history class for one of my capstones just because of the excellent reviews he got on ratemyprofessor, but he ended up being the most disorganized professor I have had on this campus. He never once gave a heads up on assignments that were due at the beginning of class, which caused me a lot of stress when I had to do a paper at the very last minute. I ended up getting a C in both classes, but I have to say the one I took with the professor who got negative reviews was far easier.
I remember during SOAR orientation one of the advisers telling me not to pick classes based on what I read on ratemyprofessor because they are written mostly by students who don't do the work. Looking back, I'm pretty sure he was right. The professor I took that got bad reviews would not take homework assignments after the first ten minutes of class, so my guess is that a lot of the students that complained about her online were the ones who came to class late or the ones who didn't do the homework at all. Thats what makes ratemyprofessor so unreliable, the fact that you don't know if the person writing the review is someone who gets straight As or straight Fs.
My advice to students is this: if you are trying to decide which classes to take for the fall, don't google ratemyprofessor. Instead, ask a reliable friend or classmate about the professor, someone who gets decent grades and always shows up to class. Because taking or not taking a class based on a classmate or friends recommendation is a much smarter decision than based on a review written by someone who might have dropped out of school long ago.
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