Course Geeks is a website that hopes to improve the way students evaluate and choose their classes. The website will launch in about a month, to collect reviews from students about their courses at San Diego State, and eventually, it will have enough compiled reviews to act as a resource. The website will provide more specific information than, for example, Ratemyprofessors.com.
It’s the brainchild of Kareem Scamahorn, who graduated from SDSU in 2011 with an accounting degree. He has worked as an auditor at other companies and is a licensed CPA, but he has wanted to pursue this idea ever since he was a student.
“As a student, I had to register,” Scamahorn said. “But there was never enough information for me to feel comfortable. You can only get so much with what is out there currently.”
Where Ratemyprofessor.com might have more subjective reviews of a professor, with tags and some qualities such as helpfulness, clarity, and easiness, Course Geeks plans to have more specific information.
“It’s going to be very objective and factual,” Scamahorn said. “It isn’t so subjective and it isn’t just about picking through what you think is right. For example, the survey students take will ask ‘Does the professor take attendance?’ and the possible answers will be ‘yes, every class,’ ‘yes, occasionally,’ and ‘no.’
Some other questions answered will be “Is homework due every class session?” and “How often does it require a textbook?” Some other questions will provide the number of essays and the number of presentations required in a course.
Scamahorn explained that his accounting degree not only helped in his financing the website, but his experience in analytics also contributed to the website itself.
“It goes into the logic behind the survey questions,” he said.
Subsequently, all of this information will go into the professor rating. The specific information on the course will also be displayed.
Other tools the website promises include a list of courses that each student can keep. For that reason, he hopes to link the service to MyMAP. That will also make it so students can search by specific course rather than by the professors’ name or department. Lastly, the site will be kept up to date with its information.
Scamahorn hopes that students will participate by submitting reviews to the website.
“We look at this as students helping students,” he said. “The more people that participate, the better it will be. In the end, it is a college student resource.”
The access to the website is free, and the site will be up in for spring registration. Scamahorn emphasizes the importance of selecting the right classes and hopes this website will change students’ class registration for the better.
“I understand the way professors affect student performance,” he said. “It can really change their college career.”
