Should I Delay My Engineering Classes Due to Poor Ratings?

[e^(i Pi)+1=0]

I'm taking my first two engineering courses in the fall, but I'm thinking I might hold off now until I transfer. I looked up my teachers on rateyourprofessor.com and they both have received pretty abysmal reviews. Is this maybe student's normal reactions to their first engineering courses, or is this atypical? I've found this site to jibe pretty well with my experiences in the past.

http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/ShowRatings.jsp?tid=416521&page=1

http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/ShowRatings.jsp?tid=354649&page=1

 

[member 392791]

I think with rate my professor a lot of bad students put the bad ratings on the teacher. I am taking this guy and he isn't as bad as the ratings show.

http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/ShowRatings.jsp?tid=464354&page=1

 

[QuarkCharmer]

Rate my professor is a horrible reference. At my university the absolute best mathematics professor has horrible ratemyprofessor scores. It's simply because he teaches difficult courses with difficult work. He is an absolutely brilliant teacher though.

If I were you, I would ask other people who have taken the course, and are actually interested in the material or at least moderately intelligent. Ask the tutors at your tutoring center (if you have one) about the professors. They hear about all of the professors for the subjects they tutor, if they have not had them directly

 

[DeadOriginal]

When I attended a small university, my best professors were the ones wit the worst ratings on ratemyprofessor.

 

[RoshanBBQ]

I'll be completely honest with you: It is usually a dull person who blames his teacher after he failed. Otherwise, he'd have to admit he is dull.

 

[ZenOne]

In my experience (2nd year engi going to 3rd) RmP has been more right than wrong. I completely understand many of the complaints but I'm crazy and take the teacher anyway. Most of the teachers with a bad rating that I've had the displeasure of taking have been lacklustre, however, I like to self-learn so I'm ok with it.

BTW--2.4 is not that bad. I once took a teacher with a 1.2--he didn't speak a lick of English and made a sadistic dynamics midterm where a 40% (grade on the midterm) was an A+--23% was a PASS.

 

[Angry Citizen]

Rate my professor is good if the teacher has an enormously thick accent, especially for those of us with hearing impairments. Generally, don't go by the actual ratings, go by the comments. If it's "ohh this guy is SO HARD", then don't fret. If it's "Jesus, who can understand this guy?", then run - run away.

 

[DrummingAtom]

I just started looking at ratemyprof when signing up for this semester. My circuits teacher had about 5 comments along the lines of "Worst professor ever." I figured it's just a bunch of lazy kids complaining but I was wrong. He really is the worst professor I've ever had. Unorganized, unprepared, horrible lectures, he makes it seem like a questioning student is an idiot, etc. Also, it takes him about a month to give test grades back.

The other professors I checked out also had accurate comments. It's pretty easy to catch some angry kid posting because he failed but if the professor has a track record of bad comments then I would take that as a warning.

 

[ZenOne]

^^Exactly^^

I would never listen to a single comment but if there are 15+ "this guy is brutal" comments I would be careful.