Completing course evaluations is beneficial for students and professors alike
It’s that dreaded time of the year where all students have papers, projects — oh who am I kidding — it’s course evaluation time!
Every year the school asks its students to give their honest thoughts on professors and how they teach their courses. You simply log into the portal, answer some questions and boom you’re done. But I find that many students decide to skip the evaluation as they don’t think their opinion will matter. To them, I say you’re wrong.
Course evaluations serve different purposes, they help the professors improve, or for the students to voice their opinions. Here’s why completing these course evaluations will help you and future students.
It benefits the students
By evaluating your courses, you are not only helping the professor, but other students who will be taking that class in the future. Instead of always referring yourself to RateMyProf to see if a professor is bad, you can talk to your friends and get direct feedback instead.
If the professor uses the criticism provided from the course evaluations, it will only benefit everyone taking that class in years to come. Criticism provided from previous years is addressed. It also provides the students with an outlet to make their voices heard. Too often students are fed up but with nowhere to voice those concerns.
The course evaluation does just that, benefiting students that have felt neglected and giving them a direct connection to a professor they may hate or enjoy.
It helps the professor understand what needs improvement
By either saying positive or negative things, the professor will be able to take that information to make the class better. I personally have ripped professors apart during course evaluations as their classes have been rather awful. But I have also written positive criticism to certain professors I have enjoyed. By doing this you’re able to give them the proper information so they can fix their course for the following year or semester, and some professors do appreciate the feedback.
Now, more than ever, course evaluations are important. The COVID-19 pandemic has made us all adapt to online learning. Some professors have adapted to it very well, while others have completely bottled it. You can’t simply go to office hours and tell a professor how you feel in person, as the pandemic has shut down campus. By using the course evaluation, you are able to voice your opinion for the betterment of academia.
I evaluated my courses the other day and told one of my professors that their class has taught me very little, and that there needs improvement in the structure for next semester. Now this may be harsh, and some eyebrows may rise, but this is why course evaluations exist. They exist for you to improve classes for future students and to provide your professors with good or bad criticism. All of what you say is anonymous, and no one will know if you said something mean, nice, etc…
These are the reasons I evaluate my courses, and these are the reasons you should too. Course evaluation closes Dec. 4, so you have a week left to go and evaluate those courses. Go get it done!
