Dion Hines | Managing Forum Editor

With the beginning of the school year winding down and the add/drop period officially behind us, students have finally settled into their classes. Yet in just a few months, the next bloodbath of spring course selection will begin. Nearly every student has a professor horror story — someone who assigned an insane amount of work, had a strong personality, or taught ineffectively. Naturally, students warn their friends about these classes, but in the digital age, they no longer need first-hand recommendations. They can simply turn to Rate My Professors, a website where students can rate and comment on professors at universities across the country. During my time at WashU, I’ve noticed how heavily students rely on this website, revealing a further issue: the lack of standardization across courses. 

Rate My Professors is certainly far from perfect. Its anonymity creates the possibility of exaggeration and even false claims. Nevertheless, at least at WashU, the website has become a staple on our campus during class registration. Students don’t solely use Rate My Professors for entertainment, it is a necessary precaution when deciding on classes to take.

I deeply admire the commitment many WashU professors have toward their fields. That being said, when introductory classes are taught differently depending on the professor — and grading scales vary just as drastically — students can find themselves having entirely different academic experiences while technically taking the same course. 

My own experience with an introductory economics class made this issue abundantly clear. Last year, I enrolled in an entry-level macroeconomics course simply out of personal interest. Our grade was divided into participation, homework, a midterm worth 25%, and a final worth 35%.

About halfway through the semester, I was talking with a friend enrolled in the other section of the same course. When I described how I was preparing for my midterm, he was confused. His section had a completely different grading structure: quizzes, participation, homework, and the choice between a project or final exam.

Several students in my class mentioned how it felt we had to try significantly harder to get the same grade as those in the other section. Whether or not that was objectively true, the fact that students felt this way illustrates the issue at hand. For students taking classes for major credit or prerequisites, the differences between courses can be impactful. 

I originally thought my incident was an isolated occurrence, until I heard last spring’s Principles of Biology I debacle. The course was divided into smaller 54-student sections and 300-person lectures, with the students who were too slow registering on Workday left in the larger classes. Smaller sections make it easier to learn the material and give students more opportunities to connect with their professors. For the many students taking foundational biology on the pre-med track, these relationships are essential — not only for academic success, but also for securing recommendations to medical school, research opportunities, and internships.

I couldn’t wrap my head around how two sections of the same course, listed under the same course number in Workday and offered during the same semester, could operate so differently. Introductory courses are meant to cover the same material. Differences in grading scales and course structures can influence how much students study and ultimately create knowledge gaps between programs. 

Some might argue that discrepancies between courses are an inherent aspect of college and that professors should be able to teach in their own ways. While unstandardized courses may be more appropriate in the humanities, where critical thinking and personal interpretation are valued, it can be very problematic in courses like biology or macroeconomics. These classes are designed to teach hard skills and foundational knowledge, so the lack of standardization across professors can leave certain students unprepared. I am not calling for standardization across all of WashU’s campus, but certainly in classes where discrepancies can directly disadvantage students.

Rate My Professors has become a necessity at WashU because students have learned that the course number or description on Workday does not tell the full story. Currently, to make informed academic scheduling decisions, students need to go on a third-party website and rely on anonymous comments to discover that two sections of the same course can be drastically different. Not every course needs to be taught the exact same way, but foundational courses should have standardized learning objectives and structures. Professors should still have the freedom to teach in their preferred style and assess in their own manner, but students should be able to expect a consistent foundation in each course regardless of what section they are in.