All Posts Tagged With: "ratemyprofessors.com"
Universities ignore online ratings
Ratemyprofessor.com is useful for students, but not schools
Michael Hirsh still remembers his worst university professor. “The guy rambled, didn’t give an outline or explain how he graded, didn’t explain expectations. I got C,” said Hirsh, who’s in his last year as an economics student at a Toronto-area university.
“It messed up my GPA. A professor can make or break a course,” he explained. “Sure we gave the university our evaluations, but I wanted to warn other students.” Hirsh decided to take his “scathing” comments to ratemyprofessors.com where evaluations are available to anyone, not just university administration.
Official student evaluations have been part of the student experience for decades, but until the advent of the Internet, students had to rely on friends for professor recommendations — and gossip. Almost no universities provide their official evaluations to students. At ratemyprofessors.com, the site boasts of having more than 6,000 schools with over one million evaluations. Other sites that have launched include Professorperformance.com.
The University of Toronto is one place where the administration is aware of the popularity of online evaluation sites and it’s proposing its own online system, which is expected to go live in September 2011. According to Prof. Edith Hillan, vice-provost of faculty and academic life at the university, sites such as ratemyprofessors.com are “useful for students, but we wouldn’t use them from an institutional perspective to gather information.”
“Often you’ll get comments or scores at the extreme end of the spectrum,” she said.
At Ryerson University, the vice-provost for faculty affairs, John Isbister, doesn’t object to online evaluation sites, recognizing that they are useful for students who can’t access the official evaluations that students give to the administration after a course is complete. “We do care about student experience, but it’s part of the faculty’s collective agreement that their evaluations remain confidential,” said Isbister.
Both universities say exterior online evaluations have no weight when the administration is reviewing their faculty and factoring promotions, tenure, salary and other related things. The fact that official evaluations remain confidential is one reason for students flocking to the online sites as an alternative. “The official evaluations are hugely ineffective — they are good for the university to decide on salaries, but not good at helping us decide what courses to take,” said Ben White, a third-year engineering student at the University of Toronto. “I mean I never see them.”
Online evaluations can be beneficial for students who are either new or not connected to the university community. “They are really helpful and useful — I came here not knowing anyone,” said Yael Sperkut, a first-year humanities student at U of T. “I used it in high school — with ratemyteachers.com — and when I was mad or thought they weren’t doing their jobs, sure I posted — a lot.”
Hillan said the University of Toronto’s proposed online evaluations will have “provostial guidelines” — to oversee the system to make sure it’s used appropriately. These proposed evaluations don’t do enough for White. “Even the ones done through the student union are slightly edited if they’re too profane. I’m getting the straight truth when I go online,” he said.
Despite the popularity of sites such as ratemyprofessors.com, not everyone is a fan of online evaluations. “I don’t want to say something mean about my professor, I might be the only one who thinks that,” said Tamara Milavic, a first-year student at the University of Toronto. Milavic also said that she knows which professors to avoid and which ones are recommended due to having an older sister who studied in the same department.
“I have enough people telling me what to do,” she said. Second-year U of T science student Katie Spizarsky had her own reasons for never doing any evaluations, whether through the university or online. “Friends are more reliable,” she said.
The Canadian Press
Finding a summer job: just like course selection?
Not really.
Unlike creating a class schedule, you can’t try to aim for a summer job that you don’t have to show up for. Getting out of bed and showing up are typically mandatory.
When selecting a course, there’s plenty of intel to gather. By the time you show up for the first class, you should already have some preliminary impressions of the prof’s marking scheme, lecture style, and preferences for midterm questions.
But there’s no such thing as ‘ratemysummerjob.com.’ And even if there was, there aren’t exactly dozens of summer jobs with hundreds of available spots. When you’re creating a class schedule, even if you don’t get your first choices, there are always more than enough classes to go around. But summer jobs? You know you’re lucky if you land one. No matter what it is.
The basic rules for skipping classes, like “the second day is actually my first day” and “nothing ever happens the day after the midterm,” can’t be applied to a summer job, either. You’re no longer a single student in a sea of hundreds: chances are, someone might notice if you don’t show up.
-photo courtesy of DC Central Kitchen
The problem with RateMyProfessor.com
It doesn’t tell you anything about your classmates.
How to pick the perfect elective
Just because it’s easy doesn’t mean that it’s the one for you
Are you looking through all the course listings and feeling completely lost? Korean 101, Ethics 105, Anthropology 201. With all of the options available, it’s easy to find yourself with a serious case of D.E.S.S. — Dysfunctional Elective Selection Syndrome.
Knowing your priorities is the most important aspect of picking electives. An elective has to make it through my personal screening system in order to make the cut. Grades. Interest. Time.
Or: G.I.T.
Last week I enrolled for my next semester at Waterloo. I had to choose three electives. Thanks to G.I.T., I have a filter to help me make selections that are a perfect fit.
My first stage of screening: Grades. Will this course help me get a good mark? For me, this is one of the most important criterion for an elective to have. Yes, I admit it. I choose electives for their GPA-boosting abilities. Something to offset organic chem when it inevitably suffocates me.
So if I find History and Film while trolling for an elective, and find out from birdcourses.com or ratemyprofessors.com that a 90 percent is easily achievable, it goes straight to the top of my list. But it still has two more stages to get through.
Stage two: Interest. Will I find the course interesting and engaging? When I started first year, I underestimated how critical this could be. Four months of lectures about Socrates, Plato and early political movements left me knowing I did not want to take any more political science courses. Ever.
I finally get why it’s important to find the subject matter interesting. My anthropology elective last year was unexpectedly fabulous. I discovered, thanks to a professor who was also an engaging lecturer, that mitochondrial DNA and 10,000 year old neanderthal skeletons are really interesting. In a cool but kinda icky way.
I now know that taking an anthropology course with this professor guarantees me a course that I’ll enjoy. And that really helps you to do better in a course. You can’t help but absorb and retain everything the textbook and professor says.
Pros of History and Film: All I have to do is watch boring old history films.
Cons of History and Film: All I have to do is watch boring old history films.
It won’t matter if a course is being touted as an easy grade if it becomes your post-cram nap hour.
Stage three: Time. The time you have to put into a course. If an elective, for all it’s GPA boosting power, is going to require more time that your core courses, then something is seriously wrong. I’ll get my fill of 24-hours-a-day-studying from my core courses. You don’t want to end up swamped under a course that just doesn’t mesh in the work input/grade output machine. I’m more than willing to put in the work. If I’ll get the mark to show for it.
If I take History and Film, I watch old history movies once a week for three hours.
What’s great about electives is that you have the complete freedom to pick what you study. But you’re also responsible if you end up in a course that you absolutely hate. Knowing what you want from an elective makes choosing one a lot easier. And helps to cut down on course drops later due to complete course loathing. Don’t enroll in Creative Writing if you don’t like writing essays. Period.
So if I take History and Film, I’ll probably get a good mark. If I can stand watching old war movies once a week for three very long hours.
Then again, maybe some things just aren’t worth it.
