Do you use Rate My Professor?

With the ongoing enrollment, it is time for students to plan ahead and start thinking about how they can make their schedule for spring 2015 to set them up for a good semester. You probably want to make sure you end up making the right choices but in the jungle of classes and different teachers it's not always easy to make a decision. Whether you use it to find the easiest class, the best professors or you just want a heads up of what to expect, Ratemyprofessor.com is there to assist you during the process. It provides you with comments about any professor for a specific class and you can also find ratings for anything from easiness, average grades, and professor hotness. It is hard to judge if the ratings information is really accurate or just a bad review from a student who didn't actually put in the effort. SMC students explain their experiences with the website and whether they take the teacher ratings into consideration when planning out their new schedules.

Name: Danica Sundholm

Major: Education

"My geography professor asked the class 'why are you taking this class,' and a bunch of kids answered 'because you were rated high on ratemyprofessor.com,' So I know people use it to pick out their classes. I've never used it, but I'm going to for next semester. I think the website is good because if you have a bad teacher you would want everybody to know. My English teacher; I love her and I think that she is so great so I would totally rate her really good."

Name: William Knight

Major: Film

"I have actually never used it but a girl told me that I should go on there before I pick out my classes next time. I also think it's good that you can see how much and what kind of homework the teacher gives the students so you know what to expect in the class."

Name: Yassi Badri

"I have used it and I think it's a good thing to have. I think a lot of people do use it but some people might use it the wrong way where they just want to choose the easy classes to take. It's a helpful tool to be able to see from a student perspective how a professor teaches. Obviously it's coming from a student standpoint and a lot of times they are blind to their own shortcomings so they can sometimes blame it on the teacher, but other time it can be a good thing because it allows them to speak freely about the teacher."

Name: Oscar Gudino

Major: Nursing

"I think the website is a good way to know what to expect from your professor before you're actually going into the classroom and, so far, from what I've read on there, it's been pretty much like the ratings and comments ratemyprofessor.com said. So I like it."

Name: Jakob Cermeno

Major: Film & Television

"I have used the website, and I've heard from a lot of people that they've used it too. I have not really based my decision of a class on the ratings, I kind of just used it to find out if the teacher I got is going to be good or not. So far, from the teachers I have looked up, the ratings and comments have been pretty accurate."