As we once again approach the time to select our classes for the upcoming semester, students meet with their advisors to construct the best class schedule for their progress toward graduation. However, some students face one final question: “Which professor should I choose?”
Thankfully, an entire website exists to aid unsure students in selecting a professor best suited for their learning style. Rate My Professors is an anonymous webpage where students can find and leave reviews based on their experiences in classes with certain professors; future students can use it to help decide what classes to take. Freshman Ellen Zhang described how “my professor is one of the most important factors in deciding what classes I wanted to take, so I immediately used Rate My Professor[s] to figure out which classes I was going to sign up for… especially my calculus and history classes.” It is clear how useful Rate My Professors can be in determining what classes to take– unless you go to Southwestern University.
Ellen Zhang is not a freshman at SU but rather at The University of Texas at Austin. Looking at SU’s Rate My Professors one will begin to notice just how bare it is; many recent reviews are years old– if they are even on the website at all. (Yay small school!). One freshman described how, “after my advisor suggested classes for me to take during SPROG, I went to Rate My Professor to try to learn more about the classes, only for three of the professors to not be present on the website, and the only one that did have a page was my FYS (First Year Seminar) professor with one of the most recent reviews being from 2015!”
For a school that prides itself on its student-faculty relations, surprisingly few of those students have something to say about those faculty members. The lack of reviews makes it harder to hold a professor accountable for how they treat their students–which can result in them leaving a bad impression of SU–while students and other faculty members remain unaware of the negative impact on students. On the other hand, positive feedback lets a professor know what they are doing right and may help push a student who is on the fence about a class to take it. Zhang described how “at UT everyone is checking Rate My Professor a month before class selection so that we have the best idea of the classes we want to take and so we don’t end up stuck in a class we hate.” Meanwhile, at SU, students have to rely on the hope that they might know someone who has already taken that class, or that they know someone who knows someone who already has been in that class, or even worse… they might try asking Yik Yak for advice (ill-advised). The already daunting task of finding the right class has even more challenges added due to students having limited resources to learn more about potential classes. At SU, where students are encouraged to explore classes and forge their own path, it would only make sense for students to have access to the most resources. However, without those resources, students will choose whatever class they can, and only learn if they made the best decision by the time midterms roll around.
If students have anything to say about their experience with a certain professor, whether positive or negative, they are encouraged to share it so that future classes can make the best decisions for their college career.