<p>Hey CC community,
I'll be attending JuCo in the fall at Skyline College and I've been reading ratemyprofessor.com comments....after I've registered. By the way, I'll be a freshmen.</p>
<p>nyway, should I take these comments seriously or with a grain of salt? </p>
<p>my future psychology didn't get very good ratings and that scares me....Or should I avoid being like that? I hate to be a worry wart but I am anxious about starting college. </p>
<p>Thanks CC community!</p>
<p>I didn’t know about rate my professors my first semester and it was way harder than when i started actually reading about the professors. honestly the professors really make or break you in a class, if you have no choice you have no choice and deal with it but if it’s between more than 1 teacher pick the best.</p>
<p>From what I’ve seen the comments are pretty reliable. As always though, nothing is absolute. A horrid experience by one student may be a grand experience by another. It all depends on you. If you relate to or identify with the comments, then that is a better way to get a feel for the professor.</p>
<p>The ratemyprofessor tool is useful, but should not be the gospel. For example, I have a teacher currently that has the lowest quality and easiness score I have ever seen. Luckily for me, I didn’t use rate my professor at the time. He is the toughest professor I have had (probably 3 times more difficult than the next) and expects a ridiculous amount of studying and preparing out of us. He has previously taught at Berkeley and Davis, and you can tell he teaches as if he was still there. However, I believe his class has prepared me, to some extent, for what I am to expect at the UC level. </p>
<p>You have to remember that a lot of the commenters on that site are not planning on going to UC’s. They are just your run of the mill go to CC then hopefully transfer to CSU students. A teacher that is tough for them may be a joke to you.</p>
<p>With all that being said, I definitely used ratemyprofessor.com for all my classes this semester. I only got 4 more classes admissions will look at, so you know I don’t want to risk my 4.0 on some rogue professor. (:</p>
<p>To use ratemyprofessors.com effectively you have to read all the comments. Yes, there will be some that were lazy students and are taking it out on the teacher by writing negative comments but if you read enough of the comments you can get a pretty good idea of what the teacher is like.</p>
<p>RMP is most useful in avoiding the really bad professors… you know the ones with tenure who hate teaching and don’t mind failing half the class? Okay, it is not that bad, but you get my point.</p>
<p>Otherwise it is just a tool like anything else. No matter how amazing some professors are, a student here or there will give him a bad review. So far, I tend to agree with the reviews so far. My hardest teachers have had the lowest hardness rating and my best teachers have had the best overall quality ratings.</p>
<p>I would strongly recommend using ratemyprofessors every time and taking its ratings fairly seriously. You go to Skyline- part of the SMCCD, which I attended for 2 years. In the SMCCD, it is very easy to take courses at either Canada or CSM as well as Skyline - you should make the most of it. Using ratemyprofessors.com, pickaprof.com, campusbuddy.com, and the ease of switching between the 3 schools, I was able to get a 4.0 and get into Berkeley and UCLA Econ without ever feeling like I was really working too hard.</p>
<p>Part of competing well is utilizing every resource available to you. I strongly suggest opening Websmart before every semester, and then cherrypicking the highest rated teachers with the best grade distributions from any of the three schools for 100% of the classes you take. The classes are also very rarely a single section out of the three schools (this only happened to me once out of roughly 20 classes) The long commutes (I’m guessing you live in the north Penninsula?) to CSM and Canada are absolutely worth it if it means you can take classes with well-reviewed teachers who give 50+% A’s (based on the grade distributions on campusbuddy and pickaprof).</p>
<p>So yeah, if your teacher is badly reviewed, I’d recommend taking a different one even if it means driving down to CSM or something. If you don’t, you’re putting yourself at a competitive disadvantage in admissions against someone who did if they end up getting a higher GPA. Good luck in your academic career.</p>
<p>I agree with collegehopeful. In my experience, the ratings have always been correct, if sometimes on the “too-nice” side. That’s because easy teachers get good-ratings from the stupidos, but even the difficult yet worthwhile teachers get high-ratings from these people. I posted ratings of all my teachers, not because I hated them or loved them always, but because it’s a great tool I loved! Now I’m using a bruinwalk, woo woo.</p>
<p>Only trust ratings if there is more than 10 and they span at least 3 semesters. That is my rule of thumb. I know teachers who have admitted to posting fake ratings of themselves, so I sometimes am wary. Bruinwalk is cool cause you get to see the grades they gave.</p>
<p>mytime, we’ve spoke before so you know how I went to Skyline. I must say… the ratings on rate my professor are pretty accurate. At first I didn’t want to “sucker into it” but after first semester where i chose professors on my own, i realized how accurate it was. </p>
<p>i can’t say that is true for other cc’s but for skyline, it is.</p>
<p>highly recommend you take any class with diamond, messner, and merrill. they were the three most legit professors i had at skyline.</p>
<p>I’d definitely recommend using ratemyprofessor.com, although you should always ask around and get all the dirt available on a certain professor, though most reviews have been spot on. </p>
<p>I would however be wary of professors that have received “average” reviews. There are always those who leave amazing comments, and those who leave horror stories. From my own experience, I chose a professor who had average reviews and thought to myself, “I’ll just study more than usual, I’m sure I’ll be fine.”</p>
<p>I ended up getting a C in that Calculus course while my friends who hardly studied at all received A’s by taking another professor. What killed me more was the fact that I tutored them haha</p>
<p>Sorry for the rant, had to get that out of my system phew…yeah be careful with who you choose lol</p>