Every time a new quarter rears its ugly head, students like myself freak out and try to pick the best possible schedule to fit our week. Sometimes it means giving up school activities, losing a shift at work, or even getting a horrible professor for whatever subject.

To alleviate those situations, students can turn to RateMyProfessors.com, a website intended for students to rate instructors. If used correctly, students can maximize time at school and actually enjoy a quarter.

RateMyProfessors.com provides tools to let you “get to know” your professor before signing up for class. Enter “De Anza College” into the college search bar, and you’ve got a gold mine of information. The site lists most of the instructors at De Anza alphabetically, giving a rating on overall quality, helpfulness, clarity and easiness on a scale from 1 (worst) to 5 (best). Click on an instructor’s name and dozens of reviews and advice from former students appear, allowing you to make your choice easier.

Using the comments and ratings from other students allows you to know how the instructor teaches, and what kind of projects you’ll be doing in the future.  Comments from former students of an instructor can preemptively help you pass the class without much trouble. 

While it’s assumed the good comments are all from the A students and the bad ones are from students who failed the course, there’s an even mix of happy and bitter students to enable you to get a perspective. Comments like “Easy grader, but boring as hell,” and “Super hard grader, but the most interesting class in the world,” will help you make your decisions.

“When you look up teachers, take it with a grain of salt,” says political science major Margaret Nguyen. “A lot of people at De Anza have a peanut for a brain, so they think everything is hard. Some teachers really aren’t as bad as depicted on RateMyProfessors.com.”

Most of the instructors are great, but some have quirks. Only when every review states a certain instructor is a douche bag, should you actually listen. 

RateMyProfessors.com won’t save your grade point average. It’s not supposed to. It’s ultimately up to you, not your instructor, to do well in school. It’s up to you to get into gear and be prepared for the work your instructors give. 

“This doesn’t mean that RateMyProfessors.com has failed me, but it means that I could make it better. I could write a review and save students from my fate,” said Nguyen.

Don’t abuse RateMyProfessors.com and hopefully you end up with a schedule that works for you. Use it to help find instructors who teach well. You don’t want to transfer, and then find out that the upper division courses you were supposed to be prepared for are kicking your behind, right?