No good professor... SERIOUSLY?

<p>I was looking today at my university's GE curriculum and I was taking a look at all the possible professors that I could end up with to get the GE requirements done. Practically none of the professors were rated well on ratemyprofessors.com. I read the reviews on each teacher and most were not that good for ANY class. In fact, a few reviewers on this one professor flat out said that she is the best of any professor in the entire GE category and she still was not that great. It almost seems like a death GE section. My orientation is in late July, which is the last one. Therefore, it is likely I won't have a choice in terms of what professor or GE class I get. How do I go about this? </p>

<p>Most schools try to set up orientation so that all students have a equal chance at each section of a class. Being is the last session probably will not make a difference if the school does it right. All this means is that you are all in the same situation. Remember there can be a bias to ratemyprofessors.com in the sense that unhappy people are more likely to post negative reviews than happy people are to post positive reviews.</p>

<p>Unfortunately as a freshman you will get the lowest priority for classes.</p>

<p>Is there a facebook page for your school where you can ask current students for recommendations?</p>

<p>First of all, don’t put too much trust into RateMyProfessor.com. At many schools the culture is not to rate professors, and people are thus only motivated to go rate them if they have had negative experiences with the professor. Only a small fraction of the professor’s students will actually rate them, and the ones who liked the professor are ironically the least likely to go onto RMP. Form your own opinions about the professor.</p>

<p>But even if they were all 100 percent true…well, we can’t have excellent top-notch professors for all of our classes. Every now and then, you will have to take a class with a professor you don’t like or who isn’t the “best” for that particular class. What you do is you register for the classes you need, then realize that you may have to do a bit of extra work to understand the material or pay extra attention. Or not - it may be that the person is actually a decent professor who managed to disgruntle a couple of students.</p>