Registration season is in full swing and De Anza students rush to pick their favorite teachers before all the spots are filled. Of course, not all of us have been at De Anza long enough to establish rapport to be able to choose our teachers confidently and wisely. This is where ratemyprofessor.com comes in; a website run on opinions of students who have had bad experiences with teachers, who in turn get terrible reviews. This website allows experienced students to rate professors on a scale of 1 to 5 on clarity, helpfulness, easiness, and even gives them the option to tick a chili pepper indicating whether the teacher is eye-candy or not.
Not only is this website morally demeaning to the faculty who spends time educating society and the future-holders of tomorrow, it’s judgmental and puts faculty members at an unfair hierarchy. A chili pepper determining how “hot” a teacher is? Really? What ever happened to good old-fashioned values and keeping your shallow opinions to yourself? I know it’s hard to believe, but even the homework-piling and strict professors have souls!
With that said, let’s move on to accuracy. How many times have we chosen a professor with a 4.5 rating, or a solid 5 and never ended up getting the experience or the grade we wanted? More than enough times for me at least. People automatically assume that every student wants a teacher where they can sleep through the lectures and get an A+. Contrary to what you may believe, not every student is that lazy. Some students like to challenge themselves with a large workload that will actually help them learn something. Isn’t that what we all come to school for anyway? To learn? Oh wait, that’s unheard of. Plus, on what basis do these people rate the teachers on? Everybody has his or her own idea of what’s “super easy” and “crazy hard, don’t even try” level. These comments on the website throw off prospective students, who may be missing out on a really great learning opportunity just because they listened to some pissed off and lazy student.
Every teacher has his or her own unique way of teaching; let’s appreciate that. They didn’t become teachers without degrees, so they are more than qualified to be teaching you material. Besides, who would want to come to class if all teachers taught the same way, with the same grading style, with the same structure in every class? With the recent fee increase, one unit now costs $25; that being said, some of us are actually forced to fight our laziness and go to class, and would really appreciate not falling asleep.
To avoid labeling this as just a rant, I would like to advise all new students to think twice before choosing a professor based on their ratings on ratemyprofessor.com. Realize that these ratings could just be some angry students who didn’t try in class and got the grade they deserved. Point being, everybody is different; everyone excels in different areas of study. You are in college to try new things. Try out some of the teachers yourself, not based on a website. I am more than willing to bet you that most teachers will impact your life in some positive way or another.
