Rate my Professor for students
Steven Perez,18, undecided scans the Rate my Professor website at the library. (Don Congjuico)
Rate my professor is a website designed specifically to rate a certain professor based on five attributes that students find appealing. The website boasts to have the “largest online destination for professor ratings. With 7,500 schools and over 14 million entirely student-generated comments and ratings, hwww.RateMyProfessors.com is the highest-trafficked, free site for quickly researching and rating 1.7 million professors from colleges and universities across the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom.”
Students can look up a professor and determine from prior students who have taken the class through their comments whether that professor suits them. For some, referring to this website is almost as important as taking the class itself.
Oliver Jully, 23, Kinesiology major, talked about how the site greatly affects his decision to pick a professor because of the way he is used to learning things, “It really helps me if I know the style and the way he/(she) teaches the material. I feel like it gives me an edge in how I should approach it because I know what he/(she) expects of me.”
He added,” … for rate my professor, I would like to know if my teachers are good teachers, bad (and) lazy. Also for myself, if I ever become a teacher, I would want to know what are my pros and cons from the students so I can improve as a teacher.”
Oliver’s story might reflect the hundreds and thousands of students using the service online. Since there is no prior meeting with the professor it makes the experience of other students who have taken the class that much more important. It gives a sense of security knowing that a lot of people said the same thing about someone so there are fewer things to expect.
“It depends … If there (are) only a few students giving a comment on that certain teacher, then I would just go and take the class. But if it’s five or more students giving the same opinion on that particular teacher, then I would trust them,” Oliver said.
Jesicris Bato, 25, Sociology major also gave his colorful opinion about what Rate my Professor is for him. ” The idea of rate my professor conjures only one satisfactory statement that is completely prevalent as to what I think … and that is I extremely hate Rate my Professor.”
When asked about why such distaste for Rate my Professor, Mr. Bato responded with this.
” … ummm I say that because you are judging who you are going to spend the rest of the semester with based on people that you don’t even know. You would sacrifice you’re whole learning experience based on a stranger that could be just hating on that professor. For all you know it was that idiot across the street or is a person that you highly dislike so why should I trust someone who I have no means of validation from based on if he/(she) is trustworthy or not?”
Mr. Bato also brings up some very important things that can be overlooked by some. His perspective carries the weight of something very intangible to some: the values perspective. He approaches the issue with the idea of trust first personally while Mr. Jully approaches it with the idea of gaining a sense of familiarity first and trusting the people that went through it before him.
Either way it all comes down to preference. If someone wants to get first-hand knowledge before going through with something, then that person should do what he/she thinks is best for him/herself. Based on what these two contrasting opinions have offered, Rate my professor may be highly liked or highly disliked by the student masses.
Rate my Professor website.
http://blog.ratemyprofessors.com/