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<p>Well, there’s another aspect to this entirely, which is that students often times simply can’t escape horrible profs. This happens most often in those majors that proceed in lockstep, where you have to take course A before course B, then course C, etc. etc., and furthermore, course A is only taught once a year, and by only one prof. ChemE 140 is a prime example of this. It’s only taught once a year, and is the gateway to the rest of chemical engineering, to the point that you can’t even take any more ChemE courses until you pass 140 (and profs in later courses will actually check to see if you passed 140, and if you haven’t, your course registration will be cancelled). So if ChemE140 just happens to be taught by a horrible prof, what are you going to do? Your only other alternative is to wait for an entire year for the course to be taught again, which delays your graduation. And there’s no guarantee that even if you did wait for a whole year, that it won’t be taught by a horrible prof again. </p>
<p>So, really, ratemyprofessors.com and other evaluation sites can only help to a point. It doesn’t really help to know if your profs are horrible if you have no choices anyway.</p>