Ratemyprofessors.com: Take the reviews with a grain of salt
By Feliz Moreno
Having grown up as the daughter of two community college professors, I remember their conversations regarding their reviews on the website, Rate My Professor. Most of the time they would just laugh at the people who said that they were mean or "hard" teachers.
"They probably just hate us because we flunked them," they would say as they shrugged off any such negative comments.
I thought it was funny that anyone would write about what a "bad" teacher either of my parents were — especially considering how much time I knew they put into their work every day and how much they truly cared about their students.
When I started college a year ago I thought everyone was like me, and didn't take the reviews on ratemyprofessor.com very seriously, but I found myself in the minority that never used the site. Many of my peers would tell me how they chose a class solely based on the ratings a teacher received on the website or how easy or difficult a teacher was judged to be. I found it surprising, and somewhat scary that people would take comments on an anonymous website so seriously.
If this past year in college has taught me anything, it is to consider my sources and, when I find information on a person or subject, I take it upon myself to do so. It is impossible to know whether a review on ratemyprofessor.com is accurate because it is anonymous. Whereas asking friends for their opinions gives you some perspective on where the information is coming from.
Furthermore, I find most of the ratings to be based on difficulty level. While its nice for anyone who plans on floating through college to take the easiest classes possible, I think that is a pretty unrealistic plan and it leads me to question their motives for enrolling in college in the first place. I hope they are prepared to choose their career based on reviews of bosses via rateyourboss.com. Does that seem too ridiculous? If so, what's the difference? All review-based sites cater to those of us who don't want to form our own opinions or make our own life decisions and, on the review providers side, those who consider our opinions so important that the world can't live with out them.
I'm not saying that you shouldn't use the website as a resource, I am just urging you to consider your sources and not fill your head with a biased perspective of a teacher before ever setting foot in their classroom. For those of us who aren't seniors this year, we will once again choose our classes based on teachers, class times, required courses and, of course, ratemyprofessor.com.
Feliz Moreno is a freshman English major and editor of the opinion section.