Purpose of Rating Professors?

[User Name]

What is the purpose of you wasting your time writing your biased reviews on your previous professors? Dont you have something better to do? Its not like a professor gets a grade because they dont. You, the student gets the grade, so what is this some kind of reverse power trip? What is the purpose? Are you trying to get someone fired or something? How lame!

[User Name]

well????????????

[Talon]

Originally Posted by User Name

What is the purpose of you wasting your time writing your biased reviews on your previous professors? Dont you have something better to do? Its not like a professor gets a grade because they dont. You, the student gets the grade, so what is this some kind of reverse power trip? What is the purpose? Are you trying to get someone fired or something? How lame!

Professor reviews can be quite helpful to students. I use professor reviews provided by www.gradecalpoly.com and I must admit that the website has helped me tremendously. Yes, some of these reviews may be biased and reflect a student's personal opinion. However, for the most part, students tend to evaluate professors objectively in terms of grading scale, teaching style, and knowledge for the subject matter.

Students write professor reviews to help other students make an informed decision as to whether or not he/she should take a particular professor. Yes, I know students like to pick a professor whose class will be easy for them to help raise their GPA. Keep in mind that students also want a professor of good quality:1) someone who will deliver the material in a straightforward manner without making it too complex to understand and 2)someone who will help expand your knowledge and critical thinking skills. These reviews can help determine which professors are of good quality compared to those that aren't very good.

[xiaoxue]

seems like a lot of posts simply call a professor a jerk or say something like boring which tells little other than the IQ level of the poster.

yet as mentioned above there are some serious posts with solid information like how many tests, what kind of papers are due, etc. i would read each post about a prof carefully. if the post is talking about the prof's personality that's one thing for that's just an opinion. on the other hand, if the post says that two thirds of the class flunked the midterm--assuming this is true--that's quite another. just remember that the more incredible the fact the more likely the statement is not true.

when i see EASY EASY EASY i look somewhere else. why? because what that means is that the prof is LAZY LAZY LAZY and just does not want to challenge herself or her students. big deal if you get an A and learn nothing. that won't help you get a job.

[PandaMoOo]

You two have reflected so well, the only thing I will add is -> just because someone has a bias and is not a neutral party does not mean there is not valuable information. I learn a lot more about my future professors by reading reviews about them from different perspectives, because it sheds light on different angles. It just takes a lot of work to interpret what people can really mean sometimes.

I would recommend then that instead of just complaining about the quality, you do what you can to improve it. Give your opinon about a professor who got rated a way different then you feel.

On a closing note, I would like to say - professor reviews are helpful when dealing with the unknown - but you should read be critical of them like movie reviews.

[Mike]

Prior to finding goodbadtenured.com (now gradecalpoly), I had no info whatsoever on the classes I registered. But thanks to the evaluation website, I had feedbacks about the professor which I relied on. More than half of the time, the student feedback was right on the dot.

[Admin]

I couldn't have said better than the above three replies.
And professor evaluation is not a waste of time but more of a resource to the students.

[xman]

Originally Posted by User Name

What is the purpose of you wasting your time writing your biased reviews on your previous professors? Dont you have something better to do? Its not like a professor gets a grade because they dont. You, the student gets the grade, so what is this some kind of reverse power trip? What is the purpose? Are you trying to get someone fired or something? How lame!

Haha... maybe he's one of the fired Prof.! Couldn't agree more with all the comments