F – See Me After Class, Teacher

Scott Hardie | December 24, 2005
If you haven't seen it already, check out RateMyProfessors.com. (link) It lets you post numerical ratings and short comments about your college professors, and see what other people thought of them too. Apparently the purpose is to help students trying to decide which courses to take next semester, but I bet most people only use it to blow off steam about the instructors they really hated. The site becomes less useful the longer it's been since you graduated (I can't find a few of my favorite professors because they've changed schools), but it's still interested for the ones who remain.

I looked up Western Illinois University first, where I was an English major. Weird phenomenon: While there are a variety of professors with high marks, middle marks, and low marks, somehow I wound up in classes with all of the ones with low marks. :-) Some of the complaints are dead-on, and it's nice to see some of the teachers get called on their blatant favoritism, but the friendliest and funniest teachers get high marks even when they aren't very good at actual teaching. Looking at Bradley University, the high marks are well-deserved with one major exception, and I got a kick out of some of the comments. I wonder what teachers think when they read this stuff?

Jackie Mason | December 24, 2005
[hidden by request]

Amy Austin | December 24, 2005
Damn, I could only find one of mine that I wanted to look up -- and he only had 3 ratings!

I wonder how many teachers even *know* about "this stuff"...