Rate My Professors: Credible or a waste of time?

Ashley Viera/Contributing Writer 

Fall is rapidly approaching, along with the dreaded, panic-stricken process of having to select classes for the upcoming semester.

At this point, most students at FIU are trying to determine whether a teacher is a good fit, keeping several factors in mind. For assistance and assurance, students tend to turn to ratemyprofessors.com, a well known site whose sole purpose is to be a place where college students from all over can receive feedback in the style of comments regarding professors in colleges and universities alike.

Now since so many seem to depend on ratemyproffesors.com to select their classes, a reasonable preceding question would be whether it is even a reliable website to begin with.

The site can be exceedingly helpful at times but can also be incredibly arduous and frustrating to work with at other times.

Like many teacher rating sites, a worry at hand is determining whether comments posted are based on pure emotion or a professor’s viable merit. Any college student who has had a bad day or received a bad grade in a class can go online and post negative feedback, which is a concerning issue.

When asked about this flaw in the site, sophomore Armando Valencia said “For that exact reason, I believe students should not be solely dependent on a teacher rating site to determine their upcoming schedules.”

In my perspective, Armando makes an excellent point; use ratemyprofessors.com as a guidance tool but not as your only resource.

When it comes to these kinds of situations and scenarios, common sense and logic play an essential, crucial role in the decision making process.

For instance, if results on  the site of a professor’s teaching methods are either heavily positive or heavily negative, keep those in the back of your mind because chances are they are most likely reliable. Similarly, if there is only one negative comment and the commentator seems to be blatantly bashing a teacher, do not pay much attention to it.

Ratemyprofessors.com can be a great resource to assist in the selection of professors and classes but it should most definitely not be completely considered a go-to, dependable resource for one’s schedule selection.

opinion@fiusm.com