The following question and answer comes from my book Success for Life: Answers to the 77 Questions College Students Ask. I received over 1000 questions from students looking for answers, wondering about the best path in life. If you like what you read here, you can pick up your copy AT AN ALL-NEW LOW PRICE to read all of this helpful advice.
How do I pick a good professor?
That is a tough question to answer because it relates to what you define as good. It is not, however, a bad question, because the professor plays a critical role in your success. The position of professor is a mentor-type position and as such can be a positive or negative influence.
When I was in college, I had long been in love with history. My biggest love was the Civil War and probably saw myself having something to do with that in my future. However, when I took my first US History class, I had the worst teacher I ever experienced. He was someone who should have retired 10 years prior and if he had ever been a good professor, that was a distant memory. When the dust had settled, I had earned a D in the class. Note, in my high school I had graduated in the top 10% percent and in my entire life had made only 2 Cs ever. As a result, I almost dropped out of history completely. Luckily for me, I went to complain to the one professor I thought cared, the professor who would become a great influence in my life. He could do nothing for me, but he encouraged me to move on. His field was French Revolution, and Dr. Gordon Bond would later become my major professor during my Master’s Degree work. So, the negative influence of my first US history professor drove me out of American history, but into European history. Until I started teaching at Valencia in 2002 (some 20 years later), I rarely focused on US history.
A professor can make or break your experience in college, so certainly, you should try to discern the good ones. But, understand that good is a relative term. Here’s how I define good—fair to the student, solid on their subject material, respectful to all people, open to sharing the learning process with others, and open to new ideas as to how best communicate the material.
With that in mind, your best bet is to find another student who had the professor before . . . a student WHO THINKS LIKE YOU THINK! Be careful when reading website ranking sites; use discernment. They can be helpful if you know no one else who had this professor, but the reality is that you do not know what those students value. As a champion who wants to succeed greatly and who wants to be pushed academically to your very best, you are going to want to take classes with (and define as good) a professor that others may think a hard professor. When you research professors through your friends who have the same high academic values and standards, you can be more confident about the choice of professor.
Again, I know of the various ranking sites online, but you have to keep a few things in mind. To start with, typically only very motivated people will go to a site like that, so that would mean either people who really hated the professor or who really loved the professor. You must read the balance of the reviews to see the whole picture. Secondly, since you don’t know these people, you have no way of knowing what their values are, so someone complaining about too much writing in the course might be someone who hates writing in general. And, for all you know, the writing could be two page writings that you would consider “easy.”
You can also get advice from other professors; realize though most professors will not simply openly criticize a colleague (they have to work with that person). But privately, they probably can help you see if someone is worth taking or not.
The Dean also can be your friend. Typically, the Head of a Department or the Dean of a department/division wants to you to do well. Again, they probably will not openly attack one of the professors (nor should they), but they can probably guide you to the professors who they think are the best. You can ask the open-ended question such as “Which professors would you suggest in this area?” That allows the Dean or Head to mention a few names, so not picking only a favorite, yet guide you enough to steer you toward the solid professors.
Lastly, Erica Reynosa, [formerly] an advisor at Valencia College, says “realize that you don’t have to love every professor…it’s just as important to get along with folks that don’t rock your world as with those that do.” Moreover, even those professors your dislike can teach you, if you let them.
What Descartes did was a good step. You have added much several ways, and especially in taking the colours of thin plates into philosophical consideration. If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.
— Sir Issac Newton, 1676