Are there any sites/communities that rate individual courses in universities?

June 30, 2004 10:44 AM

Are there any sites/communities that rate individual courses in universities (specifically in Canadia)? [mo]

My s.o is transferring to the University of Western Ontario and she's about to register for classes, however she's having difficulty deciding how to schedule our courses. Consequently she has several questions about individual courses / departments that would be best targeted at currently enrolled UWO-students.. but UWO doesn't seem to provide a forum for such engagements and she's not near the campus so wandering about asking folks isn't viable. What's more, with summer in session the admin support is severely lacking. Skeleton crews are all that seems to be left and it's taking forever for professors to reply.

I was hoping that there'd be something akin to Rate-My-Professor? Help?

posted by Raze2k to education (5 comments total)

At my last university (the university of alberta), professors' ratings are online. The ratings are not necessarily the most helpful or the most clear--they just put the mutliple choice student evaluation sheets on the web--but I've found them to be a good resource for weeding out the really bad professors and finding the really good professors (the difficulty is choosing between the mediocre/average profs as there is no anecdotal evidence to support/disprove/explain the ratings).

Maybe Western has something similar?
posted by lumiere at 11:20 AM on June 30, 2004

Aye, finding information on professors isn't that difficult, but finding student perspectives on courses is a different matter. While it's true that the professor impacts the spectrum of a class and consequently it's difficulty level, some classes behave similarly from semester to semester. Take Organic Chemistry, for instance. That course is most always classified as a pain-inducer, regardless of who's lecturing. But something like Discrete Algorithmic Mathematics is a bit more tricky. At some universities the focus is more on application, making the course (in my opinion) inherently easier, which others place more importance in theory. The idea site/community would allow questions about individual courses, so that she could get a better idea of what she'll need to dive into her major.

One particular example question is whether it'd be feasible for a second year student to take a certain Biochemistry class. Of course such questions are subjective, but at this point any information would be appreciated.. even biased.

But thanks, lumiere!
posted by Raze2k at 11:34 AM on June 30, 2004

This answers your question, but unfortunately they don't seem to include UWO. Is the university part of a larger school system? Perhaps an admin at some home office can tell her where the evals are kept.
posted by nakedcodemonkey at 11:41 AM on June 30, 2004

nakedcodemonkey has the right idea, but I think you want this site instead (which is for university professors instead of HS teachers.) I have to say that the evaluations look like a bit of a free-for-all, but they might still be useful.

/me goes to look up his old HS teachers from his formative years in Winnipeg
posted by Johnny Assay at 1:02 PM on June 30, 2004

Oops, sorry, that should have been this site, though it's not much better with only one review for the whole university.

I was hoping that there'd be something akin to Rate-My-Professor?

So Raze2k already knew about that one.

Her academic dept doesn't have any staff working at all? If there's anyone picking up a phone, I'd suggest chatting them up. Dept secretaries should not be underestimated as good sources of info about the classes. Even if they're not current students on work-study, they've likely heard plenty of gossip from students and teachers alike, and have gained a pretty clear idea of what the most pragmatic choices are. Enveope-stuffing also exposes them to a lot of guidance packets/flyers so a veteran will have much of the common advice committed to memory.
posted by nakedcodemonkey at 3:08 PM on June 30, 2004