Lousy professors -- try as we might to avoid them, we've all had a bad experience at one time or another. At myprofessorsucks.com, you can let the whole world know whose class to take and whose to skip.
Since its August 2001 launch, the site has gotten over 220,000 hits. Not one U.Va. professor is listed yet.
University of Nebraska graduate student Kasey Kerber says he got the idea for the site in December 2000. One night, after another bad class with a crummy professor, he flopped down on his couch and thought to himself, "I wish I had known this class was like this."
"It was one of those classes where the best thing about it was that it ended," Kerber recalled. "The teacher wrote the undecipherable textbook, and he often sat Indian style at the front of the classroom."
And so an idea was born. With the help of a few technically savvy friends from the University of Florida, Kerber constructed his Web vision.
A year after its debut, Kerber has a five person staff consisting mainly of technical experts. Kerber said the original funding for the site came out of his pocket.
"It was only about a few thousand dollars," he said. "And most of the money went toward prizes for the site's contests."
After some time, though, Kerber said he realized the site's content, not its contests, was what really interested people.
Although the site's name doesn't reflect too well on college professors, Kerber said about 60 to 70 percent of evaluations are positive.
"We chose this name so students could remember it, and we wanted something with a bite," Kerber said.
Many improvements to the site have been the result of professors' suggestions, Kerber added.
"It's strange because we expected to be shelled by professors, but that hasn't happened," Kerber said. "Most contact we have with professors is positive, and I think it's because a lot of professors understand that criticism is part of their job."
In one case, however, a professor called to claim he was a better teacher than the site evaluations gave him credit for. After asking his students to visit the site and evaluate his performance, Kerber said the professor's ratings rose from a D to a high B.
Kerber said he has received lots of feedback from students about how helpful the site is.
"It gives me a good feeling to be involved with something like this," he said. "I've gotten so much out of the site that it's hard to describe one thing."
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