From time to time, we all get stuck with a lousy class taught by a lousy teacher that’s essential to the goal of graduating. It is not a sin, by the way, to call a spade a spade: a lousy teacher makes only lousy contributions to education. So, in this digital age, web sites like www.ratemyprofessors.com have popped up to serve student’s griping needs.
There are certain problems with sites like these, particularly ratemyprofessors.com. For one thing, there is a 350-character limit to the comments any given student can make. For another, there is no real quality control on the comments.
The site does regulate slanderous content; however, many comments are to the gist of “I hated this teacher because he was a @$#&ing liberal.”
That is all well and good; it is very common to despise a professor because of political affiliation. However, unless the instructor graded on political affiliation, these comments are very juvenile and rather pointless.
What we ought to be interested in is not a space to rant about our professors, but a collection of reviews that focus on the teaching skills of the instructor, and more importantly, the content of the course. There is so much more to a course than whether or not the teacher was entertaining or “likable.”
For instance, a class with an interesting topic that is badly structured is an awful experience. A class with a “likable” instructor that lacks any real content is a bust, too. Plus, a synopsis of the value of the required readings would be nice too, not that anyone does required readings.
More than anything, people seem likely to grade on the ease of the class, instead of what was really gained from the experience.

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