<p>I know about all of these websites, ratemyprof pickaprof etc., but when you go to your college counselor and set up your schedule can you actually pick which professor you want to have for a certain class?</p>
<p>With the schools I am familiar with you pick your own schedule and instructor (usually via website registration), you don't need to go to your counselor to set up your schedule.</p>
<p>ummm....yes. provided that there are multiple professors teaching the course for that term. but usually, you don't pick your classes through counselors, it's done online.</p>
<p>You're academic counselor will help you select courses for the upcoming semester but they won't tell you what time/days you have to take the courses, if there is more than one section of a course. And more than one section does NOT always mean there's more than one prof teaching the course. So yeah you can pick your prof...but sometimes the section you want is full by the time you register and you have to go with another.</p>
<p>So, are pickaprof and websites like that worth the money?</p>
<p>If they cost money, no way! You can just ask around if you want to find out if a prof is great or terrible. You can check if your school has its own prof-rating system (mine does), or you can check out ratemyprofessors.com/, which is a free site. Keep in mind that if you have to pay to access the site, so do your fellow reviewers. I would highly doubt that many people would pay to post their opinions on sites like that.</p>
<p>Through your school's website, you should be able to find a schedule of classes, with a professor already designated to teach it. Like in HS, certain teachers teach certain subjects. Within each major, certain professors specialize in teaching certain areas of the general subject. Not to sound rude, but it's college, not Burger King. You can't have it your way in respect to which prof you get.</p>
<p>With Gen Ed classes, I highly recommend that you go with the prof that will make whatever class you are taking an "easy A". However, when it comes to your major, you shouldn't do that. The reason you chose the major that you did is because you want to be highly knowledgable in that area. You won't achieve that if you take shortcuts like avoiding tough professors. You are in college to really, truly learn and prepare yourself academically for whatever career you'll be in. That will require having a tough professor at times, but you'll find that you usually come out of those classes with a true understanding of whatever was taught.</p>
<p>I personally believe pickaprof is definitely worth the money (even better if you split an account with a friend), especially because it allows you to see the grade distributions for past sections of a particular teacher's class and compare it to the overall grade distribution for the course. The reviews are usually pretty good--I recommend using ratemyprofessors in conjunction. Also, the scheduling tool is very convenient and easy to use.</p>
<p>myprofessorsucks.com is also a good rating site. I wouldn't pay to see professor reviews though, no way.</p>
<p>we basically pick our own classes and stuff...our academic advisors are supposed to keep us on track or whatever.</p>
<p>Sure, as long as the times don't overlap other courses you're taking. </p>
<p>But just from experience, not all professors with horrible ratings are actually horrible for everyone and vise versa. I pretty much hated one professor at my school that most people thought was decent to good...and really liked a couple that most people complained about and told me to avoid. A lot of times it's more about personality than actual problems with teaching/grading.</p>
<p>katho,</p>
<p>i agree. prof ratings CAN be useful, BUT alot depends on the students doing the rating -- so much about those evaluations is subjective and from a relatively limited number of students, so while they can be very useful, you should rely on more than that to determine the profs to take. Also, some profs my be better with different types of classes.
For example, at my school, we have a professor who has been here for quite a few years and is a nice guy outside class but many students (as in virtually every (blank) major) think he is a terrible lecturer, but he is actually pretty good in classes that require more active participation by students -- classes that use hands-on learning -- so just one example of where a prof might be quite good in certain types of classes, but not in the class that a given student took.</p>
<p>The only reason I check ratings is to see if they can speak english. If someone has an accent, I can only struggle to understand what they are literally saying, not what it means. Hard classes are better, atleast for me they make me put in more effort.</p>
<p>go to ratemyprofessor.com</p>