While discussing the classes I plan to take next semester with a group of friends last weekend, I realized that who’s teaching a class is just as important as deciding which class to take. Funny thing is, we all came up with different methods on how to pick the right professor. So I figured I’d pass along their ideas to you.
1) Rate My Professor
One of my best friends will not sign up for a class without first checking a professor’s rating on RateMyProfessor.com. As a communication major in my third year, I don’t often get the chance to rate my professor because there’s only one class offered with one professor. But before I ran head-on into the classes in my major, RateMyProfessor.com was my favorite site. In fact, I used the site before signing up for all of my general education classes. As a freshman, almost all of your classes are taught by at least five different professors. This gives you the opportunity to not only pick your class, but also the professor you want to take it with.
RateMyProfessor.com is really user-friendly and actually fun to use. Students rate professors on easiness, helpfulness and clarity while adding comments about textbook use and attendance. There’s a box for comments and professors and students can even post photos. But my favorite part is being able rate whether the professor is “hot” or “not.”
You can search for a professor’s rating by his or her name, department or even FAU campus. To check out the site and ratings for FAU, click here
2) FAU SPOT Analysis Forms
Another great way to find out what other students think of your soon-to-be professor is to check out FAU SPOT forms. SPOT (Student Perception of Teaching) surveys are given to students at the end of each term to rate their professor’s effectiveness. This form also goes more in depth about the professor’s ability to teach and the content covered. There are more areas for students to rate the professor using the SPOT forms. Although you can’t find out if the professor is hot, SPOT forms are turned in by just about every FAU student. So, there are a lot more evaluations to look at for each professor, opposed to RateMyProfessor.com which may have 5 to 10 ratings per teacher.
Check the SPOT forms here. The surveys are divided by campus, college and department.
3) Word of Mouth
Of course the best way to find out about a professor is to talk to someone who took his or her class. The best advice I can give you is to ask everyone about the professor you are considering before signing up for his or her class. Ask your friends, have them ask their friends and ask random people in your classes. But most importantly, ask more than one person and when they give you their recommendation, be sure to ask why.
Whatever method you use, be sure to always check up on a professor before signing up for a class. In a worst case scenario, if you end up with a horrible professor, drop the class during drop and add week and find something better.
If you’ve had an interesting experience with a teacher and want to share, please leave your comments below. Or, if you know another way to check on a professor before singing up for his or her class, please let us know.
Have a question of your own? Ask the UP! I will be accepting questions here as comments or you can e-mail them to me directly at mboyet@gmail.com. I want to hear from you, so please send me your questions.
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7 comments:
You Cow! We miss Parsley's blog cuz even he was smarter than you.
That last comment was asinine and it's pretty ridiculous that someone in college would make remarks of that nature.
Anyway, this blog is a great idea.
Can you find out:
1) From athletics: What restaurants/retail they plan to include in the Innovation Village? Are they going to send our a mass email asking for ideas? I was especially wondering if there would be a barbecue place, a pizza place, a bowling alley, and an arcade?
2) From the university architect: Why aren't there any red brick buildings on campus, like at UF or FSU? Also, the Master Plan for Boca Raton discussed the possibility of removing the parking in front of the library and changing it into a sculpture garden/park-type of area with benches and trees. Is this still the plan and when? Also, when are they putting in the next parking garage?
3) From Program Board: when they're going to stop getting lame bands that no one has heard of and give us a national act (like Linkin Park) for us to enjoy and brag to our friends about? If it's a diversity issue, couldn't they do one big country band one year, one big rap group the next year, one big rock band the year after that, etc.
Please let us know.
Thanks for the ideas, I will definitely look into them.
Do you even know what "asinine" means?
As a firm supporter of Mike who you ran out of office, I can only read your blog and laugh.
I'm a member of SG and can only say that your writing stinks, and you have no ideas. Call that "asinine" if you will, but you really cannot write.
Where are your talents in journalism? Steve, Jason, and mike have all interviewed me, while you "play" the nice office manager and behind the scenes try to run things.
Youre not as sweet as everyone thinks. Acutally pretty phoney. It;s no secret, either.
Again, at least Parsley was real. He earned his spot, and didn;t have to use "Political Muscle" to push people out of office. If you can even call it that.
Your regular writers are better than you. Applause for taking direction well. Does someone write your blogs for you? We've never seen you write anything even close to a story, even if it pisses people off. Are you even capable?
BRING BACK PARSLEY"S BLOG AND STOP WRITING!
Of course I know what "asinine" means or else I wouldn't have used it.
I also know that you're clearly trolling for an fight and I'm not interested.
What I will say is that Jason Parsley no longer writes for the UP because he graduated from FAU. He's moved on to bigger and better things.
If you're not interested in reading what the UP has to offer, you're more than capable of investing in the most recent New York Times.
Does FAU actually recycle all of that trash. I've heard students say they've actually have seen the garbage people dump all of it into one big container.
Pauline,
Thanks for the question. I've heard that also. I know there were some issues with recycling on the Jupiter campus, but I will look into whether it's a problem at every campus. Thanks.
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