<p>Many people use ratemyprofessor or some similar site to see how easy a professor is. Is the following statement true?</p>
<p>Since a professor A is easier than professor B, it will be easier for students to do well in professor A's class, and therefore the curve will be harsher and it will be harder to get a good grade.</p>
<p>Any input?</p>
<p>I think you are overanalyzing it. Not everyone chooses a professor just b/c he's easier. People take into account the times as well.</p>
<p>by "easy," i thought you meant that the prof gives higher grades on average. in which case, the curve for the easier prof is nicer and it'll be easier to get a good grade.</p>
<p>Some professors are horrible lecturers, some are irresponsible, some hate and ridicule students on a regular basis. You can get info on this type of thing on that site. It can be useful.</p>
<p>Some professors are also amazingly brilliant. And sometimes you can find out about that too.</p>
<p>In your personal opinions...which factor do you think is more important:</p>
<p>Good lecture/discussion times</p>
<p>or feedback on the professor (How easy/good people say he is)</p>
<p>It depends on the course. If the material isn't too difficult, I'd opt for the better professor. If the material is difficult, I'd go for the easy professor.</p>
<p>I generally place more weight on the time slot availability than the ratings of the professor on those websites (simply because I hate classes before noon). I'd only go out of my way to pick a course that will give me a time slot I do not like if the professor had dramatically better ratings on ratemyprofessors.com and pickaprof.com.</p>
<p>it could also be that more students think the class is easy and dont try as hard thus making it easier for you to get a good grade.</p>
<p>^^^ true, true</p>
<p>Go for the easier professor. Here's why:</p>
<p>The curve is just you vs. the other students in the class. If the teacher is really easy, you're ALL going to do better in the class, because the teacher will give a higher grade to EVERYONE than they would have gotten in a harder class. The teacher's level of difficulty doesn't affect how you stack up against the other students in your class- that will be the same. What will change is the actual grade you get for your position in the curve...so for a really hard professor, a grade in the 50th percentile might be a C or a D...but for a really easy professor, a grade in the same percentile might be a B.</p>
<p>Well I personally like to go for the better (more knowledgeable/better teacher) professor for subjects within my major, irregardless of how much of a reputation they have for being difficult. My reasoning for this is that no matter how tough the course is, it's still a mathematics course and I'll find the material interesting enough to put in as much time as it takes to pull off the grade I want. I'll also do this for classes over material that I would gladly study on my own time (philosophy and physics) because, once again, I'm willing to put in the time.</p>
<p>On the other hand if it's a class I don't like I'll go for the easy prof, no doubt. In most of those cases I just want to get my grade and get out.</p>
<p>As far as times go I'd only care about what time any particular class is if it interfered with any previously scheduled class or if there's no substantial difference in either of the above categories.</p>