Matt and Eliz­a­beth have both writ­ten insight­ful pieces regard­ing the dif­fi­cul­ties and often gray areas that emerge when select­ing col­lege pro­fes­sors to guide the next semes­ter at col­lege. Check out "Can we 'red flag' pro­fes­sors?" and "Deal­ing with a Dif­fi­cult Pro­fes­sor" for more on these.

This post will be short and sweet.

How does a col­lege stu­dent even pick pro­fes­sors? Most classes stu­dents take dur­ing fresh­man or sopho­more year are offered in a vari­ety of dif­fer­ent sec­tions, which include an offer­ing of dif­fer­ent pro­fes­sors and class time/days of the week. While pub­lic col­lege bud­get cuts may be low­ing the amount of sec­tions offered per class, it's likely that most say… Eng­lish 101 sec­tions will have sev­eral pro­fes­sors from which to choose. (Note: Not all college-level instruc­tors actu­ally have the for­mal title "pro­fes­sor" attached to their name, but for the intent and pur­pose of this post, "pro­fes­sor" will be used.)

Say you're look­ing at dif­fer­ent Monday/Wednesday noon-1:00 sec­tions for Eng­lish 101 for your fresh­man year. You can choose between pro­fes­sors White, Steltz­man or Var­jay. Who the heck are these peo­ple? What can I really tell from a last name alone? Worry not… you have tools to avoid pick­ing at ran­dom! Here are some ideas.

1. Ask stu­dents who've been there. Sopho­mores and juniors who've been through the gen­eral ed marathon will likely have strong opin­ions on pro­fes­sors they've taken. Grad­u­ate stu­dents are a good bet too, as they might have col­leagues who teach your classes or even teach one themselves.
2. RateMyProfessor.com — The ulti­mate resource for sub­jec­tive, bare-faced tes­ti­mo­ni­als of col­lege pro­fes­sors. You can search by either last name or school to pull up student-written pro­fes­sor reviews, ranks and rat­ings from every­thing from help­ful­ness to a chili pep­per "hot" factor.
3. E-mail pro­fes­sors. Espe­cially if you've never met her or him, shoot a quick e-mail intro­duc­ing your­self as a prospec­tive stu­dent and ask­ing for more infor­ma­tion on the class. Not only will the pro­fes­sor be impressed by your ini­tia­tive, but you'll get a good sense of their teach­ing and e-mail style. E-mail cor­re­spon­dence with pro­fes­sors is becom­ing a grow­ing trend, even for fresh­man col­lege students.

Hint: To find pro­fes­sor e-mails, sim­ply find the "Direc­tory" page on the college's Web site.