BruinWalk: a place for analysis, not petty insults
By Karen Louth
Feb. 11, 2010 9:00 p.m.
Which of the following points would most influence your choice in selecting a professor after reading a review? A) How they curve the class. B) Taking a final exam versus writing a final paper. Or, C) How many rude haters they have.
Whenever I log into the Web site BruinWalk, where UCLA students can rate and review the professors they’ve taken class with, I’m distracted by reviews that are more mean-spirited than meaningful. Whether it’s the anonymity of the Internet that contributes to the harsh words or just an unhappy student letting off steam, these rants are not constructive and should end.
First off, I’m not against the basic idea of reviewing professors. We pay good money to attend this university, so we should definitely have a say in the caliber of our professors. That’s why we have those course evaluation forms to fill out at the end of the quarter.
It’s also good to know a little about what we may be getting into before heading to lecture on the first day. As an English student, I’ve read numerous BruinWalk reviews before deciding which math or science classes to enroll in; I chose the ones where the reviewers said the professor gave plenty of opportunities to write papers.
But I’ve also hesitated before enrolling in a class, usually after stumbling across a review that reads something like, “He hates teaching and it shows.”
Or what about reading one that says, “Don’t ask questions, … especially if it’s about something he feels he’s explained well enough. He’ll make you feel like a moron.” Or, “Holy crap ultimate fail.” Or, “Heed my warning. … Be very very frightened of this man. His class will make you die, very very slowly.”
I recently tried to find some sense behind these reviews. Maybe a correlation between the bad reviews and a bad overall rating on the 1-10 scale? Surely the lowest rated professors would have all the hate. But as it turns out, after checking on a personal favorite of my own, even a professor who is hovering around an 8 can get, “He has nothing insightful to say in lecture and it is extremely painful to drag myself to class.”
So I think part of the hate can be attributed to the fact that BruinWalk allows such postings to make the page without any regulation.
UCLA Student Media controls BruinWalk and I’ve found no policy that states that they attempt to stop, or at least screen, any slanderous statements. There is only a “Flag as Inappropriate” button on posts. However, that still means that a vicious review can be accessed up until someone gets offended, rather than being stopped before it goes online. Reviews are also posted anonymously, possibly contributing to why students get so mean-spirited when there’s no way to hold even a screen name accountable.
In comparison to BruinWalk, the Web site ratemyprofessors.com devotes an entire page to “Posting Guidelines,” explaining how any “libelous” or “harmful” or “derogatory” comments will be deleted. All comments on their site are “moderated by a real person on a daily basis” and if something slips by, a site user can click their “Flag rating” button, alerting the site to revisit the comment and make sure it is dealt with appropriately. While ratemyprofessors.com does not make it mandatory to create an account to post, meaning that it too accepts anonymous reviews, its preemptive methods are so extensive that it can take that risk. Bruinwalk.com, if it has such similar policies, needs to make them known and start enforcing them.
Remember, we may fill out an evaluation sheet at the end of every quarter, but we never see those results. It’s BruinWalk that provides a large and, when used appropriately, valuable student-to-student information source. And whether you really want them to or not, if you make a post, your words do make an impact on your fellow Bruins.
This was evidenced when a reviewer stated that they didn’t find a professor to be as bad as everyone had been saying. The reviewer even admitted how, “Near the end of the quarter, I think he started writing larger and had better notes ““ which makes me speculate if I thought his accent was bad only because of the influence these ratings had on me.”
The next time you want to critique a professor, do so with some actual concrete examples that will help your peers and any subsequent students make an educated decision.
If it was the curve that you didn’t like, say that you didn’t like the grading policy. If you would’ve rather had a final project than a final exam, point that out. A review that reads, “He is a really good, informative professor. Although he talks extremely quickly, he conveys a lot of knowledge,” would help an indecisive student much more than one that says he had an “ugly appearance and personality.”
In case you hadn’t noticed, this is UCLA. We’re lucky to have such an outstanding pool of professors ““ it’s not like they let just anybody teach here. So let’s keep those reviews, be they favorable or critical, mature and informative. Leave the blatant insults in the high school bathroom stall where they belong.
If you can leave out the insults and have a constructive criticism for this column, e-mail Louth at
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