Some students choose to send their professor an email once in a while, or perhaps they may even pop into office hours at some point during the semester when they feel lost. But not me. No, I’m not like other students.
You see, when I find something to complain about, I don’t look for solutions in the midst of it happening. I wait until I’ve let every single minor inconvenience throughout the semester simmer, and then when it’s too late for anyone to help me, I turn into an anonymous Rate My Professors reviewer and release my wrath.
Yes, that’s right. I’m the one that gives a one-star review on a 4.5 star professor (that high score is practically always undeserved, if you ask me. Which I know you do.) I am that ounce of doubt in the nervous first year’s eyes when looking up their future professor. At the end of every semester, I hide behind my computer screen like a gremlin, with pages upon pages of notes — not class notes, silly, but pages of complaints — hunching into my keyboard as I project everything that’s ever irritated me in the slightest onto the internet forever.
“This prof is a Grinch! He wears an ugly green sweater to lecture everyday, and it doesn’t even match his shoes. Most unorganized prof at SFU >:( 1/10 never taking a course with this joke again,” I’ll eloquently say.
Why put it on the internet, you may ask? Why not fill out a feedback form or just talk to your professor?
That’s a stupid question.
But regardless, I find that leaving a permanent mark on my professor’s reputation, like a tattoo, if you will, shows remarkable courage. It takes real guts to leave a public proclamation of your subjective anger on a site meant to help other students with their course selection.
Some people ask for help and email their professor assignment questions like some measly child. That couldn’t be me. If I don’t understand assignment guidelines, that’s just not my fault.
The 500 unopened emails on my SFU account don’t prove a thing about my work habits. I’ll have you know that I am physically present at every lecture. What more can even be expected of me? Sure, I sit angrily cross-armed with my earbuds in throughout the entirety of my muted two-hour Zoom class, but that’s only because of the professor’s poor communication. And there’s a slight possibility that I haven’t even looked at any of the readings, but that’s also just because the lectures probably have nothing to do with the readings. No, I’m convinced they definitely don’t.
So there you have it. If you’ve had the professors I’ve had, you would understand why I do what I do. Am I ashamed of myself? Absolutely not. Will I continue to word vomit irrational, harmful, often horribly rude and uncalled for complaints on Rate My Professors? Till the day I die.
