I’ve heard lots of great things about this school and was psyched when I got admitted via EA. However, I’ve seen mixed/negative reviews about some of the professors here and am a little curious. For anyone who currently attends, what are your personal experiences with them? Are those “bad apples” only in specific colleges/majors/subjects?
Not a current student but at any university there will be mixed reviews of professors. Sometimes the star professors are not that great when teaching undergrad courses.
@coolpeaches:
What is the source of your “negative reviews” information about BC’s professors?
The funny thing about reviews in general is this: people are frequently more apt to post a negative review than a positive one.
They get all fired up about something, and that’s how they release the negative energy… they tell the world.
On the other hand, when things go right, they tend to give themselves a virtual pat on the back for choosing so wisely, and go on with their day.
Do NOT let negative reviews of professors color your choice of schools!! Visit the school and sit in on a class or two. Make up your mind based on your experiences.
My D graduated last year with a double major, and had wonderful professors overall, particularly focused on undergrad education. Sure, a couple may have been a “boring” lecturers, but were aweeome in office hours; no jerks. (And ‘boring’ to her may have electrifying to another student.) Of course, she was judicious in using the online student evaluation in picking classes.
Sites like Niche/Yelp/Student Adviser. I guess the most credible source I have would be going there myself, but I wanted to hear from other people’s experiences as well.
Do you know what sites she used when picking her classes?
the student government (ugbc) used to run an eval site; it doesn’t have newer faculty, but still can gibe you an idea of some tenured profs:
The PEP site is still up. Some newer faculty may be on there - it’s just a question of whether a student posts a review or not. Most of the reviews are fairly old. As bjkmom noted, there’s probably a selection bias in that a ticked off student is probably more likely to post a review than a happy student. Students I talk to say they know about this bias, but some of them still anchor on the less favorable reviews even when the reviews are largely positive. Word of mouth remains the best resource.
Tomofboston has it right - every school has great teachers and poor teachers. I think BC has a higher proportion of great teachers than most schools, but we have some clunkers. Everyone does. Do some due diligence and you’ll be fine coolpeaches.
Sure, that’s why its important to read critically – and not just the average score – and decide whether that factor is important to you. For example, some negative Prof comments arise because students don’t like getting dinged for being late to class, for not reading the material before a seminar, for a professor not allowing them to surf the 'Net during class. Now, if those are important factors to you, then the negative review is probably relevant, and you should choose a different (large lecture) class. OTOH, if those factors are not important, i.e., you make a point to show up to class on time having read the material…then look and see what other students say.