GREG BARNETT
Sports Assistant
Registration started this week, and will continue until Nov. 19, and students are frantically searching for what classes to take, hoping to get good class times and, most importantly, popular professors who fit their schedule.
A professor can make or break a student’s semester and students go to great lengths to make sure they get a good professor to avoid those who have bad reputations. Word of mouth or experience on campus aren’t the only tools students use with the Internet capable of having a site about anything. Evaluating professors with Ratemyprofessors.com is a site many students use to find out if a certain professor has a good reputation or a bad one.
The Web site provides a place for students to evaluate professors on a scale of 1 to 5 on four qualities: easiness, helpfulness, clarity and rater interest. Students also have the opportunity to say if the professor is good looking.
“I think ratemyprofessors.com is fabulous,” junior Kristen Englert said. “It’s a great way to see how your peers view professors, and for the most part it is very accurate. I always use it before I make my schedule each semester.”
Dr. Maire Mullins, chair of the Humanities Division, has a 3.7 out of 5 rating, which translates into a good rating. She said now that she knows, she might go look at what students have posted about her. However, she said doesn’t think the Web site has enough credibility because anyone can go on and write a review about any professor. She says she believes students should trust an advisor more than a Web site regarding classes.
“I think you’re much better off being at a campus and talking to an adviser,” Mullins said.
In order to sign up for ratemyprofessors.com, all a person has to do is provide any e-mail address and a name. Students can then make up where they go to school and post about any professor they choose at any college.
Senior Gregg Barlow said because he’s been on campus for a few years and knows most of the professors in his major, he doesn’t use ratemyprofessors.com to choose his professors.
“I use the same professors for my classes because of my major and I know the good ones and bad ones from experience,” he said.
Accounting professor Dr. Carolyn Galantine said she thinks her poor rating of 2.2 out of 5 on ratemyprofessors.com is because the only students who go on the Web site and post are students who either really dislike a professor or really like a professor. She said she believes that teacher evaluations handed in by all students are much more helpful because every student hands one in and she will change her class based on these evaluations.
“All students complete teacher evaluations and those are more valuable because the average student completes them,” Galantine said.
Senior Zachary Mason said he thinks ratemyprofessors.com is fairly accurate and students have the right to evaluate professors and give them a grade expressing how they feel about them.
“I think if they give us grades then we can give them grades as well,” Mason said.
Dr. Mike Mullen, a business professor, says he has never looked at the Web site, but he has heard of it. Mullen has an almost perfect rating of 4.9 out of 5 on the Web site and also has a chili pepper next to his name, meaning that he is attractive according to a students who rated him. He said the chili pepper next to his name on the Web site shows that it is definitely not accurate about everything.
“If you take a look at me, the one word that would not come to mind is hot,” Mullen said. “That shows the fallacy of that instrument.”
11-15-2007
