Going into 3rd year undergrad at UChicago, I’ve selected all but one of my classes based on having been in at least a few class sessions with the same instructor. (The exception has extremely positive course evals.) I think being in a class with an instructor is the only valuable, reliable, consistently available source of information here—since students vary so much in learning style, learning ability, and background, it’s hard to get good info from them. I think students don’t shop as much as they could because that requires doing stuff.
The only times I pay attention to course evals is when they are mostly unanimous, or when they give specific indications of qualities that are definitely good or definitely bad. E.g. good: “gives lots of examples quickly, without being repetitive”, “the homeworks are enlightening/challenging/not tedious” and bad: “doesn’t speak clearly”, “gives obscure/tedious homework problems”.
By the way, Vipul, I think I have your old Linear Programming book from the Eckhart table. :)
Going into 3rd year undergrad at UChicago, I’ve selected all but one of my classes based on having been in at least a few class sessions with the same instructor. (The exception has extremely positive course evals.) I think being in a class with an instructor is the only valuable, reliable, consistently available source of information here—since students vary so much in learning style, learning ability, and background, it’s hard to get good info from them. I think students don’t shop as much as they could because that requires doing stuff.
The only times I pay attention to course evals is when they are mostly unanimous, or when they give specific indications of qualities that are definitely good or definitely bad. E.g. good: “gives lots of examples quickly, without being repetitive”, “the homeworks are enlightening/challenging/not tedious” and bad: “doesn’t speak clearly”, “gives obscure/tedious homework problems”.
By the way, Vipul, I think I have your old Linear Programming book from the Eckhart table. :)