dailytitan.com
August 23, 2010
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The online guide to professors How to find out which professor fits your style of learning JENNIFER CHUNG Asst. Graphics Editor
Biased grading, suffocatingly strict attendance policies, lectures that lull you to the deepest dream level possible, these are just a few of the many elements most of us hope to avoid when choosing a professor during the exciting process of class registration. One of the greatest things about college is the variety of options available to us. If there are choices, why not go for the most sensible one? Since its launch in 1999, RateMyProfessors.com has proven to be a savior to college students all over the United States, Canada and Great Britain. The site has since accumulated a database of over 6,000 schools, 1 million professors and a whopping 10 million opinions pertaining to them.
RateMyProfessors.com allows students a fairly lax rein when it comes to rating professors, barring obscene language or libelous comments. Students are given the liberty to rate their professors on varying levels of easiness (hard to easy), helpfulness (useless to extremely helpful), clarity (incomprehensible to crystal clear), hotness (a rating some may deem trivial, yet secretly advantageous) and lastly an overall rating composed of an average of the above. Students have differing preferences for which trait they consider the most important. Jennifer Ebunilo, 22, a graphic design senior, stressed the necessity of a thoroughly helpful professor. “If a professor can’t help you when you’re lost, they’re failing to do their job. You’re not learning, and nobody wins.” Students are also able to comment on other aspects of the class the professor teaches, such as the attendance policy, whether a textbook is necessary to do well or the grading structure. An interesting question that RateMyProfessors.com raises is this:
What is the real motive behind actually utilizing this site? Do students search for professors that will actually challenge them and take them on a scholastic adventure in order to milk the course of its true educational benefits? Or are they mainly just looking to take on the role as captain of the S.S. Easy A for a laid-back voyage of smooth sailing? For Chris Le, 21, a psychology senior, it is the former. “I enjoy an instructor who can engage me intellectually, and I feel that RateMyProfessors.com provides too much insight on whether a person would get along with an instructor on a personal level, as opposed to how well they’ll actually learn from them,” he said. Despite the wild assortment of opinions, and as Stephanie Chavez, a business accounting major, 21, pointed out, one thing can be said with confidence: A professor’s teaching style has a huge effect on the academic success of a student. This is where RateMyProfessors.com comes in. Save yourself the headache of finding the “right” professor for you and check the site out.
Courtesy of RateMyProfessors.com