By Brittney Bruner
Before registering for classes, many students have different approaches to choosing what they will take for the upcoming semester.
As some students know, Web sites such as pick-a-prof.com, ratemyprofessors.com and services available on myspace.com provide students with the opportunity to view the critiques that their fellow peers give certain professors.
“I found some success using the sites for this semester,” said freshman Nathan Armentrout, a computer engineering and computer science major. “I think the idea that drives these sites is good and has good intentions.”
Most of the Web sites allow students to rate a professor on a number of different scales including clarity, easiness, helpfulness and overall quality.
Hotness factor is even thrown in there at the user’s discretion and perhaps to poke a little fun at the ratings.
However, it’s undeterminable how accurate such ratings are. Obviously, several different aspects have to be considered: the credentials of the students providing the critiques, the seriousness taken by each student, and the educational growth each student expects to obtain from their college courses.
However, there is a varied fan-base among students and professors that present an array of negative, positive, and indifferent positions about the principle and purpose of these Web sites.
Senior Anthony Cash contended that students should rely on their own initiative to determine whether a class is worth taking rather than looking to others.
“I did look at these sites my first couple of years, but the reviews rarely match up to reality,” said Cash, a triple major in philosophy, political science and history. “It would be better for students to visit a professor’s personal Web site, or actually take the first week of class and then drop if it isn’t working out.”
Nonetheless, other students found the resources to be successful and the peer input they provide to be reliable.
Students do recognize the potential problems such sites can create.
“However, at the same time it has its draw backs,” said Armentrout. “For one drawback I think about the quality of the curriculum. Everyone wants to find the professor who asks the least out of the class and in this case may pressure other professors to lower their standards to a bare minimum.”
Professors seem to have mixed feelings regarding these Web sites.
“I do not check those sites,” said Arnold Karpoff, biology professor. “I always view these sort of voluntary commentaries the same way we used to score ice-skating in the Olympics: throw away the highest and the lowest commentaries and those in the middle are probably closer to the truth.”
Philosophy Professor Robert Urekew offers a unique perspective on the system of professor evaluation.
“Students are consumers, and they have all the rights of consumers. Before consumers purchase a product or service, they have the right to be informed about their purchase,” said Urekew. “In a free market, products and services that are worth the purchase price will identify themselves, and those that are not will not last long in the marketplace.”
Urekew said he believes that, though the sites are designed to aid students, they can also provide valuable input to professors on what does and does not work in the classroom.
“These Web sites are of lasting value to instructors. Every instructor should be a preacher of the value of lifelong learning,” said Urekew.
“Thus, instructors should welcome information that empowers them to learn more and more about how to improve their courses.”
Though he is used to doling out grades for his students, Urekew said he is certainly willing to have the proverbial shoe on the other foot.
“The best way to proclaim a value is to live it yourself.”
