Wanted: Strong, Knowledgable Person to Teach Me a Lesson.

Like the annual returning of the ducks on campus, all UNM students face another event during their collegeic careers. It’s inevitable and every year it happens to hundreds of students. It may not have happened to you yet, but no doubt it has already happened to a friend of yours. What I’m talking about is the “bad” professor that every student seems to encounter at least once in their UNM lifespan.

It’s not that UNM has bad professors left and right. Far be it from that actually, instead it all depends on the student and his/her definition on what makes a bad professor. All people learn and respond to people in many different ways and while some academic relationships work out for the best, others crash and burn. Some students complain that it was the only professor available or that they didn’t know what to expect. And for the most part most students don’t know what to expect from their professors. They could end up with the hardest grader out there for all they know, or someone who’s not challenging enough for them. So are we as students powerless in our right pick of professors?

Some would say, “Just grin and bear it, it’s only a semester”, but I say “No”. I’m not paying hundreds of dollars a year for some person to teach me in a fashion I cannot grasp, or don’t like. I’d rather succeed in the class easily, than struggle to get a grade I won’t like in the end. So what hope is there in knowing a professor before taking the class? It’s not like they have myspace profiles that tell us all about them. Really, when it comes down to it, how much control do we really have in our education? The truth is that we have total control, but we need tools to help us implement that control.

One of those tools, in controlling our educational experience, lies in websites like RateMyProfessor.com or MySpace’s Grade My Professor Tool. It is one of the easiest ways to research a professor at UNM, before taking the class. Comments made by previous students on the professor’s teaching style, grading methods, and other aspects are all there for you to see. These sites serve as an invaluable tool in choosing what professor is right for you. For example say you need a class for just the credit, but don’t care too much about he subject. That’s when you use the sites to find the easiest grader perhaps. Or say you really want to understand a class, geared toward you intended major. That’s when you use the sites to find the professor that has good abilities to explain the subject thoroughly. Basically it all depends on you and what you want out of the class and the professor.

Yet, there are still obstacles. Some of the newer professors at UNM have yet to earn ratings and it’s true that the sites are still developing, as far as UNM professors go. You also must take some of the comments with a grain of salt and consider the student who made the comment also. Perhaps they failed because they were lazy, and the professor had nothing to do with it. It basically comes down to being smart about the comments. The sites however are still an invaluable tool in getting the best out of UNM, academically. So I say to you, if the internet has been able to help thousands to find love, why not utilize it to find that special relationship that works for you also.