The end of the school year is finally here, and this semester’s electives are over. You may be preparing for finals right now, but you also need to think about preparing for your course evaluations. Every year, the best colleges online offer course evaluations where students can give their opinions about a course. If you had a bad experience, this is the time to say something about it. Most people blow off their evaluations as if they are not important, but these things need to be taken seriously. Here are a few reasons why…
Improving the Experience for Future Students
If there is a professor at a college that just shouldn’t be teaching, someone needs to say something about it. My husband is currently taking a music appreciation course, and the professor, well, has a few notes out of tune…if you know what I mean. She is incredibly ill prepared, and her lectures are laughable at best. Thus whenever his course evaluation comes up, he is going to inform the school of the terrible job she is doing. This will ensure that future students
avoid similarly bad experiences, or it at least raises a cause for concern on the part of the administration. He’s not alone in these bad remarks, so something will most likely be done.
On the flip side of that, giving a positive evaluation for a class will ensure that good professors stay around. I had a few professors in my architecture studios that I absolutely adored, and one of them actually earned a promotion because of the heavy praise he got from me and the other students in the class. This is a chance for you to (get tickets something rotten help the good professors get recognized just as much as the bad ones are. You need to take it seriously.
How to Write Your Evaluation
Writing a course evaluation is much like writing a persuasive essay. You want to get your points across, but you want to do so in a way that is going to come off as intelligent, not nagging or rude. If you make valid points in your argument while still upholding your maturity level, your work is going to be much more powerful in the end. Rather than saying, “This class sucks. The teacher was a complete moron,” you should say something like, “I found it difficult to learn from this instructor because he was not prepared for class. I never got a syllabus to follow in the course, and most of the lectures only discussed opinions, not facts.” If you can provide valid reasoning as to why you had a bad experience in the course, the evaluators will know what to look for after 
you get out of it. You’re a lot more likely to get noticed if you know what you’re talking about.
When structuring your evaluation, try not to nitpick. That will make you seem like you are whining, and it will hurt the power in the core aspect of your argument. If the professor’s lack of preparation held you back from doing well in the course, focus on that. Don’t focus on her failure to respond within 24 hours to one of your emails. If you focus on the big stuff and let everything else go away, the other problems will surface eventually.
You have an opportunity now to vocalize the issues or successes you have had with a course. Take all of this seriously, and give honest evaluations every one of the courses you have taken. Don’t be afraid to say what you think, even if it’s not the best thought in the world. You will make your college a better place as a result.for