LETTER: Evaluations need to change
To the editor:
I just read the article titled “Evaluations could become shorter and be online,” which was in the Feb. 25 Statesman. All I have to say is Thank you to the person who came up with that idea. I am a senior and I’ve filled out so many of those evaluations that it’s not even funny. I, along with the professors, find those evaluations to be mundane and long. After filling out so many of those things it is not hard to get the feeling that you’re wasting your time filling them out. Some of those questions are pointless and it is a good idea to cut some of them out. For a couple of years now I’ve had a hard time keeping a positive attitude toward filling out those evaluations. I really wonder how much the professors pay attention to what we as the students write in those evaluations. Is there by any chance the possibility that I could walk into one of these same professors’ classes in 10 years from now and watch the class being run exactly the same way as it is currently run? I really wonder if I write down unrealistic expectations on those evaluations, or if the professors read them, but that’s it. I mean if I were to complain for two pages straight about how it was so unfair that I had to do tons of homework in an algebra class that would be unrealistic. I don’t like the fact that I’m doing a lot of algebra homework this semester, but I can deal with it because I realize that I’ll never learn how to do algebra if I don’t do the homework. But when I write something down about how it was lame that I had to pay an extra fee for a class due to the use of equipment, and then we ended up watching only one movie during the whole semester and PowerPoint was used only a few times, that wouldn’t be an unrealistic expectation to want that to be changed. Basically my point is that I honestly don’t think that the teacher evaluations do much good. So I don’t see a point to filling them out if they’re not being taken into consideration in regards to how the class is structured. By the way, I have had a couple of professors who are willing to change things. So this isn’t all the university professors that I’m referring to. Another thing that would be smart to do with the teacher evaluations would be to have them filled out around mid-term, because honestly, a lot of students do not care about what happened during the semester by dead week. Because by that time it’s obvious that they won’t fail the course, so they don’t care and put little thought into the evaluation. So it’s better to have them filled out during the semseter, because then students will care and you’ll get a more valid teacher evaluation. That’s just my opinion, so take it for what it’s worth. Thank you though to whoever came up with the shorter teacher evaluation idea, I appreciate the idea a lot.
Jeanne Evans