Editor’s Note: All opinion section content reflects the views of the individual author only and does not represent a stance taken by The Collegian or its editorial board.
As much as I love the second half of the spring semester — the warm and fresh weather boosts my mood, work ethic and overall vibe — registering for classes definitely brings unneeded stress to my already stressful life. Not only am I sent into a vicious cycle of worrying about what classes I need and then worrying because they’re not offered, but I frequent one website more often than Canvas, Gmail or ChatGPT — jokes, jokes — combined: Rate My Professors.
The unspoken holy grail for college students, Rate My Professors is a database that allows students of any college to leave anonymous reviews about their professors. These reviews are supposed to provide a good basis and overview for students who want to know what a professor is like before taking a class.
In theory, Rate My Professors is a genius idea. Our professors and their teaching styles heavily impact the way we learn, for better or for worse. Students should register for classes in an informed manner, which includes knowing the teaching styles and methods of each possible professor.
“A poor teaching style, difficult curriculum or lack of adaptability on top of that is understandable, but we shouldn’t be tarnishing a professor’s indirect reputation merely because of the way they speak.”
But the reason this platform falls apart, in my eyes, is because it’s not all that accurate. Rather than being a constructive rating website that has a relatively equal number of good and bad reviews, I’d estimate that about 90% of them are overwhelmingly negative.
Some of the complaints are entirely valid. Every student has a right to their opinion and, therefore, the right to negatively review a professor they see fit. But similar to most reviews on a product, app or service, people are most likely to leave a review when they have a bad experience, not a good one.
Conversely, many reviews I see aren’t valid at all. I’ve seen complaints about attendance policies multiple times. This, in itself, is a valid thing to complain about, but then it’s explained that the professor allows up to four unexcused absences — two whole weeks of classes, mind you — and that was not nearly enough.
In case you’ve forgotten, we’re all paying to be here. If not us directly, maybe our families or even the government, but the education itself certainly isn’t free. Four unexcused absences — not including excused absences — is more than generous and definitely not a valid reason to rate a professor two stars.
I’ve also seen a lot of overwhelmingly negative reviews about professors with accents. While accents can add a level of difficulty in classroom communication, there are many easy ways to work around that, such as adding extra detail to lectures available online or implementing a multimedia approach with videos or other interactive elements.
For this reason, I don’t think a professor having an accent is a big enough problem to significantly impact their rating. A poor teaching style, difficult curriculum or lack of adaptability on top of that is understandable, but we shouldn’t be tarnishing a professor’s indirect reputation merely because of the way they speak.
Will I continue using the website religiously? Yeah, probably. I take it with a heavy grain of salt, though, and encourage you to do so, too. To balance out all the reviews bitching about getting a D for missing eight classes, let’s start leaving positive reviews for the professors we love. They deserve as much attention as the professors we don’t.
Reach Emma Souza at letters@collegian.com or on Twitter @_emmasouza.
