The good, the bad, and the ugly!! At the end of the semester, the university asks students to write voluntary reviews of their instructors. Here are ALL the reviews students said about me, completely unfiltered! (I only censored out my boss’ name)

You can click below to enlarge the images and read exactly what they said. Here is the summary:

Positives

• Cares about her students: I really was invested and wanted them to not only do their best in my class, but be the best version of themselves that they could be. They’re at a very impressionable age/stage in their life (sophomores in college) and I honestly think this is the year that determines their efforts for the rest of their college career – whether they will try hard, or not. I know I inspired some of them to clean up their act and pick it up. I was REALLY busy last semester but I still held the extra office hours, answered all their emails quickly, and gave them my full attention. They acknowledged and reciprocated the effort. Most of them tried really hard for me.
• Very knowledgeable about accounting: Tis true. I also have real world experience in the industry and can explain such applications. I aim to teach both the big picture understanding, which often gets lost in a technical course like this, as well as the detailed derivations.
• Enthusiastic: I tried, accounting can definitely be boring. Even accounting people hate accounting, let alone non-accounting people. Since I taught the introductory accounting course, I had ALL business majors (i.e. marketing, international business, even biology) so I tried to make it as fun/interesting as accounting can possibly be lol.
• Efficient: I was surely a firecracker – boom, boom, boom. No questions? Okay next slide.
• Should replace the lead Professor: What can I say! -hairflip- I do hope to one day teach my own course with my own curriculum and assignments. It’d be a good idea! I’m cool/fun most of the time and stern when I have to be. Also, I think the things I say really resonate with students since I am so much closer to them in age.

Negatives

• Talk slower: My whole life people have told me I speak too fast!! Friends warned me to speak more slowly when teaching. I consciously spoke slower and believe I did most of the time. But when we were on a time crunch (when time slips by because they ask so many questions), I definitely Nicki Minaj’d it and spoke at 100 miles an hour in order to cover all the material. In my opinion, I spoke fast only when necessary!
• Go over material slower, spend more time: I would always ask them “Do you have any questions? Do you get it? Anything you want me to go over?” to which they had nothing to say, so I’d dismiss class. It was not uncommon for me to let them out early. Many students, in my positive reviews, said they appreciated that I was succinct. Of course, there will be other students who say I need to go over things more and more slowly. Truthfully, I believe no matter how slow an instructor could teach, there will always be students who just do not understand accounting.
• More relevant: Many said they wish the content was more relevant to the exams, but this was not my fault. Firstly, I am given slides. All instructors are given the same set to keep it consistent/fair across sections. Secondly, I did not get to see the exams, so I had no idea what was actually going to be tested!

 

And here are the ratings. You’ll see that one or two students ranked me “Poor” on all of the questions…clearly some bitter kids. But I heard I ranked pretty high so I am glad!

 

It makes me so happy to read the positive reviews and I will learn from the criticisms. Some of them definitely made me chuckle. I love teaching!