There is nothing more important to a college course than the Professor that teaches it. The difference between having an excellent professor or a terrible one can be enough to cause a student to change majors. Last summer I reviewed the website Rate My Professors, which allows students to read previous student's gradings of professors to help them choose their classes. There is a similar website, Pick-A-Prof, which you can also use to made educated decisions about the professors and classes you sign up for.
In addition to student reviews, ratings and evaluations, Pick-A-Prof posts the grade histories of all professors. While I wouldn't want my sons to use this tool just to pick professors that are easy graders, this tool can be used to find fair graders and weed out those that may seem unusually harsh.
Pick-A-Prof also includes a schedule planner on its website. Students can pick their professors, find classes that friends are in, and put together their schedule all in one place.
With the ridiculously high cost of college textbooks, parents will appreciate the Book Exchange feature of Pick-A-Prof. Students can post their used textbooks to sell here. When a student needs to buy textbooks, the Book Exchange allows them to compare prices from many online sellers, including the used books sold by other students.
Of course, as any website aimed at college students must have, Pick-A-Prof has Facebook applications. In addition to their original Facebook group, they recently added new applications for "my courses" and "professor ratings".
Who knows what a difference it would have made in my college education if I had use of websites such as Rate my Professors and Pick-A-Prof. One bad or boring professor might have turned me off to an entire subject. If used wisely, and not just to find easy classes, these tools can help students to thrive.
See also: SuperFutures Offers Teens Online Guidance Counselors
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I know my son at Ga Tech has some way of looking up his profs. This could be it. He swears by it.
That's a great idea, I would have loved that. I have a teen starting college in the fall. I'm not sure if I want her to use it though. Kids sometimes hate the difficult prof, when really they are sometimes the best teachers.
I go to Texas A & M. We have a new service called Koofers.com and it's a lot better than Pickaprof. Hopefully they will get to more schools. I think they are in the works of expanding.
Websites like www.gradeabase.com provide student reviews, recommendations, and difficulty information about college courses that can help make picking classes easier.
Interesting topic, specially useful for the next needy generation. I was wondering if I had read this post at my college time, what would be the results. Anyway, students should keep in mind if their professor has already read this article too. Teacher is the master after-all.