By Aliza Hashmani/reporter
With spring registration approaching, many TCC students are spending as much time researching teachers as they are courses.
Some turn to Ratemyprofessors.com, a Web site where students visit to either find a professor that is highly recommended by fellow students or rate their professor to warn students.
This Web site has impacted how some people like NE Campus student Shamim Noorani register for their classes.
“I always visit the Rate My Professors Web site before registering for any class,” Noorani said. “I don’t look for an easy professor necessarily but one that I am going to actually gain knowledge from and one who is going to be fair.”
The Web site consists of collegiate professors from across the United States as well as some schools in England, Canada, Scotland and Wales. With thousands of comments and ratings on these professors, students use this Web site as a guiding light for which professors to pick and which ones to avoid.
“There are some professors who are caring, want you to learn and execute their jobs as educators very well.
Then there are some professors who don’t seem interested in teaching, and, in turn, the students suffer with a lower GPA,” NE student Candy Michaels said.
The downfall to this Web site is that it may not be entirely accurate.
Students can leave negative comments out of spite, which falsely represent the professor.
“I have only received one comment that had criticism, and based on the student’s comment, I knew who it was,” said Linda LaCoste, TR business instructor. “That being said, I have him in a class right now, so he took me again anyway. That feels a little unfair to ding me but then sign up again for another course I’m teaching.”
LaCoste said the positive feedback serves as confirmation.
“It also makes me feel good when I see nice ratings out there as well,” she said.
“They validate that at least for those students, I met their expectations and they had a positive experience in my class.”
Students rate professors on average easiness, average helpfulness, average clarity and even hotness on a scale of one to five with five being the best score.
Through Rate My Professor, NE student Sara Woolsey discovered she wasn’t alone in her feelings about one course.
“I had a really bad American literature professor last semester. I received a D in the class and thought it was because I didn’t put in enough effort,” she said.
“When I visited the Web site to see what others said about this particular professor, turns out that everyone had the same problem I did. There was not one positive comment about this professor.”
According to an article in Time magazine, Rate My Professors has generated 6.8 million student ratings since 1999 and continues to hold the designation as the Internet’s largest listing of collegiate professor ratings.
