Since I am almost done with my prerequisites, I wanted to share something that I thought was fun and interesting. If you are signing up for a course, or done with a course, you can put your two cents here and rate your professor. You can see what other students have written about the professor before you take the class.
Of course we all know that some professors you just can't get away from. I thought this was an interesting site regardless.
I'd focus more on doing my best, not try to figure out particular foibles and plan for possible difficulties. I buy study guides and take meticulous notes, regardless of how difficult or easy any teacher may be. I found the ratings for some of the professors at the CC I attended for pre-requisites mostly negative...
and I loved their classes! Some of the teachers described as 'unfair', 'too strict', 'overwhelming' and so on were tough but pushed us to learn. I found a few good professors and stuck with them, (and they were happy to recommend colleagues they thought I might like as well.) Read it for fun and to gather some extra info but don't let it psyche you out!
Ha ha, from reading some of them, it seems like the Instructors are posting every semester to keep their averages up so not to frighten people off from the bad eggs: or the squeaking wheels who did not study are the same ones who normally post.
If they were severly strict or overly easy, they would not be teaching long in Nursing. They need to bring in revenues and they need to keep students first time pass rates up.
But you do hear bits and pieces about the teacher's other careers and/or interest which may sway your preferences. Like anything on the web (or from anybody!), its just information; and how you use it is your preference. I talk to Admin Secretary's, other students, and anyone else. So its just an easy source of additional, maybe questionable data to pile in the stack. What if, shoulda, coulda, woulda, ... life's a gamble. If that is all you depend on to make your decision, ask for your money back if things don't go right :no:
i use ratemyprofessor and have found it to be very useful when chosing which class to take. you can usually tell who is just mad for getting a bad grade and who's telling the truth. i had to take my chemistry class because it was the only one offered in the evening, the professor was rated horrible and he was. i went to every class, did every lab, assignment and extra credit but none of tests were meant to be passes. i got a 79% in the class and am still soo upset that i just missed a b. i have almost all a's on my record and now i'm stuck with this c. grrrr.
I have found the scores to be accurate for the instructors I have taken. (community college) Most are good with a few bad ones. Some comments for teachers I came accross were: "always late" and "don't even worry about your grade, just make sure you show up to EVERY class" for one instructor, and "super funny, will make you laugh all semester. Very fun and makes interesting" for another. I took those classes and the reviews were RIGHT ON! Loved taking those classes!
When posting a review, I find my reviews are mostly very very similar to other reviews on that particular instructor. I find the site very valuable. The instructor totally makes or breaks a class for me! It's not about how easy or hard, but the energy the instructor brings and how organized they are.
I have used the site and also found it fairly accurate.
For A&PII there is one teacher pretty much panned and it looked like I might be stuck with him. (Other online classes were full.) One very good student in my Micro class warned me not to take him and told me that she dropped his class in the first week!
I was lucky to log on and find on of the teacher I wanted now had a vacancy and I switched post-haste!!!!
NS is hard enough to get into without taking a class that might tank your average when you could have had someone else.
I think that Rate My Professor can be a really useful resource (not to mention pretty amusing) but you have to pick and choose which reviews you take seriously. I also try to take a look at how many people have rated the professor and if the ratings are fairly consistent. If I see that out of 50 reviews 49 are bad then I try to avoid that professor but if 10 out of 80 are bad then I usually read those 10 reviews to see why they dislike the professor. When I look at my professors on the website I look at each review and try to find one that sounds at least half legible and somewhat intelligible. For example when I find a review that looks like the following I generally ignore it.
Dis professor iz such a b*tch I mean 4real her gr8ding system is so wack. She gave me a D n I deserv at least an A 4 all my hard work. W/E I will nevr take dis class again with dat loosa!
However, if someone writes a review that looks like the following I might take it a bit more seriously.
I really enjoy the subject matter taught in this class but I found that some of the professors grading policies were unclear and the professor was unapproachable. I will take a class in this subject again soon but I'm not sure if I would take another class with this professor.
I try to make sure that when I write a review for a professor that it's honest, objective and helpful because otherwise if its not any of those things then what is the point of writing a review? So like I said, Rate My Professor is a helpful site but just make sure when your reading the reviews and picking classes you consider the source of each review.
Just keep in mind that the students who are unhappy with their grades tend to be more motivated to post a rating on the site. :)
If I see a prof. who is almost completely negatively-rated and there are thoughtful ratings for her/him, I avoid that professor. But if the ratings are something like, "She was SO HARD! She gave us a quiz every class and wouldn't accept late labs!", then I know the writer wanted something for nothing.
I had a professor last Spring who was wonderful, but who got a lot of negative ratings because he is tough and takes no BS from students. I found him to be fair and thorough. What more could I have asked?
So read the ratings with a grain of salt. Some of them will be so negative, you'll just know to run far away from that professor. :)
I found the site very accurate as there was some truth to every opinion. When someone posts that a professor only reads from the powerpoints, that's exactly what she does. When someone posts that a professor is incompetent and needs to be fired, I agreed. Even when I disagreed with a posting, I could see how a student would have that particular opinion.
Sometimes it becomes really confusing when you have only two ratings and they look like the following:
"Great guy, really easy to understand, he made the class seem very easy. I highly advise to take him over the other alternatives.If he is not teaching the class you need, you'd better wait till he does because he is so much easier to understand. Take BIO 201 with him."
------
"Lectures consist entirely of powerpoint presentations. Class average on our first midterm was 64%. What does that tell you about the teacher? Take someone else if you can!"
:chuckle
Yes, I have biology with this professor. At the end of the quarter I will be able to write an opinion about him :)
Specializes in Critical Care; Cardiac; Professional Development.
I use it but I take the bad reviews with a grain of salt. I do admit though if a professor gets very good reviews or very bad by everyone who says anything, I am swayed by it. I dropped a professor like a hot potato once he got assigned to my A&P II class due to his completely terrible (20+ people) reviews. I signed up for the course with another instructor who got more moderate ratings. I too watch for the "no extra credit" "wouldn't take late work" whiners and discount them.
I dropped a class with a certain professor because of that site. If there are a mixture of good and bad responses then I will take my chances with the professor. However, this professor had all negative reviews. Plus the class taught by him in X subject was the only one still left unfilled. Given the combination of all the reviews being bad and people getting on a waiting list for a full class as opposed to taking his class, I dropped it.
I have used this site, too. I try to share each professor's style when I review them. So far, I've been lucky when I have only 2 wildly divergent reviews. At the end of the semester, I write my own to even the score.
:no:
amarilla, RN
318 Posts
IME, it can be hit or miss.
I'd focus more on doing my best, not try to figure out particular foibles and plan for possible difficulties. I buy study guides and take meticulous notes, regardless of how difficult or easy any teacher may be. I found the ratings for some of the professors at the CC I attended for pre-requisites mostly negative...
and I loved their classes! Some of the teachers described as 'unfair', 'too strict', 'overwhelming' and so on were tough but pushed us to learn. I found a few good professors and stuck with them, (and they were happy to recommend colleagues they thought I might like as well.) Read it for fun and to gather some extra info but don't let it psyche you out!
Best,
Southern