By Diana Lichtenstein || Onion Dip Columnist
As we approach class registration for J-term and Spring Semester, one resource comes to mind: ratemyprofessors.com. For those who don’t know what this website is, it is a surprisingly useful tool that college students rely on when choosing courses for the next term.
Essentially, you can post reviews of professors, quantified as ratings out of 5 stars, and give detailed reasons why or why not to take their course. In recent years, I have noticed the popularity of the site decrease, as the reviews are published less frequently. This is very unfortunate, and I cannot figure out the reason for this decline. Half of the most recent reviews are from 2017, which is not helpful. Also, only certain professors have more than 20 ratings—many only have one to two, which is not conducive to decision making.
How can I pick the right professors if no one is courageous enough to post current reviews? Maybe students are scared to offend professors? It is all anonymous though, so that cannot be the reason. Again, students need to write more current reviews. I want to know what my potential professors were like last year, not in 2005. Additionally, I would like to see more specifics when it comes to the reviews. Tell me how many tests and essays you had, please. It really does matter.
Hopefully, you guys will listen to me and revamp ratemyprofessors.com.
Junior Diana Lichtenstein is an Onion Dip Columnist, her email is dlichten@fandm.edu