Tangents & Tirades

by The Cowl Editor on November 14, 2019


Opinion


Graphic courtesy of Kelly Wheeler ’21/The Cowl

Break Away from RateMyProfessors

With the season of choosing next semesters’ classes comes the raiding of ratemyprofessors.com, a website where students can get the inside scoop on their potential professors. Although the ability to access this information can be comforting, it can also take away from the experience of growing academically from the challenge of a difficult professor.  

The obstacle of getting an ill-reputed teacher back in high school without the luxury of utilizing ratemyprofessors.com may have been an annoyance, but more often than not, those teachers were the ones who forced students to work harder, fostering better work ethics. By routinely relying on this luxury of finding the easiest professors in college, the benefits from being subject to the challenge of difficult teachers will fall flat. 

With this being said, although a professor may have a 4.5 difficulty rating, that does not mean that he or she is going to ruin your college experience. Additionally, the reviews on the site are very subjective—who’s to say that the student writing the review is similar to you? 

While everyone can agree that scouting the easiest work load possible for their coming semesters is comforting, the value in facing a challenging course load can be lost in that amenity. Rather, instead of focusing on enrolling in classes solely based on difficulty ratings or overall quantity of work, take a chance on someone with a higher difficulty rating—the challenge might just have a positive impact on you. 

—Margaret Scales ’23

 

Photo courtesy of Free SVG

Time is Currency for Professors AND Students

Have you ever experienced a class that went over the time it was allotted? Most of Providence College’s campus has too.  

This is a concept that can become quite aggravating, especially when it comes to professors that habitually partake in this practice. Many students arrange their schedules so that they are going to back-to-back classes, or working right after class.  

Thus, when a professor goes even slightly over, these few minutes can make students go from barely being on time to immediately being late. If professors are going to enforce tardiness policies, they must in turn be sure to finish their classes on time, given that students will likely be penalized for being late to their next class.  

If professors do anticipate going over given their passion for the course material, they should allow students to leave if they have somewhere pressing to be next.  

There should be a mutual respect for other peoples’ time when it comes to the classroom—students should avoid at all costs being late to their classes, and professors should avoid going over the time allotted to their class. Time is a valuable currency to everyone—no matter their pay grade.

—Savannah Plaisted ’21