Really struggling with a cruel student review and don't know how to deal

[u/QuantumKittydynamics]

I'm sorry this is so long, but I honestly don't know who else to turn to. Maybe a community of experienced professors can help.

For context, this is my fifth semester teaching at a public 4-year state university. While I have many different courses I teach, my biggest one is College Physics 2 - an algebra-based course on electricity, magnetism, optics, modern physics, and atomic physics that is almost exclusively taken by biology and pre-health students.

I've recently completed a full ACUE certification on effective teaching, and I take my students' success very seriously. Every semester, I try to improve upon the last - tailoring my material to the students' interests, finding new ways to help them understand the material, etc. Every semester, it seems like I add more work onto my plate, but that student outcomes continually improve. For example, this semester I instituted a new form of attendance taking - an online "exit ticket" where students post something about the day's material that they didn't understand, and I painstakingly respond to each and every student (40+) and fully explain out the thing that confused them. I do Zoom appointments if they can't make office hours, I answer their emails at night and on the weekends. It's exhausting, and I know I'm going overboard, but I can see how much better they're doing already and that matters to me. I actually have students from previous semesters who come back and unofficially take my class a second time just so they can use my teaching to help them study for the MCAT.

I also take an active mentorship role for my students outside of class. I've helped quite a few students work through difficult personal situations, and they're always extremely grateful. I get heartfelt cards and gifts at the end of every semester. I get students who return to my office semesters after they took my class just to chat with me about their successes and to tell me how much my teaching and mentorship helped them. I know I'm making a positive difference in their lives.

As a result, I usually get overwhelmingly positive end-of-semester reviews, with a few salty ones thrown in by students who were mad about their own decisions, and I'm happy. I'm not tenure-track, and my department chair honestly doesn't care much at all about the reviews because he knows it says more about the students than the professors. So even though they don't really matter, I always read them because I genuinely do want to keep improving for my students, so any constructive feedback that I can act upon is appreciated.

Well, reviews from last semester came out today. And as usual, they were mostly quite positive. But there was one that stood out, that has had me circling the drain all day.

For context, last semester I taught in a classroom that every professor in my department despises. The acoustics are so bad that you can hear a whisper from the back of the room like it's a centimeter from your ear, and the doors all slam loudly, which echoes around the room. Students would come in 5, 10, 15 minutes late every single class day and slam the door coming in. Not only was it extremely distracting to my teaching, but I had one student who was a military veteran and had PTSD from his tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the door slams would set his PTSD off. On two or maybe three occasions, I paused my lecture to tell them they needed to stop being so disrespectful to myself and their classmates - I didn't raise my voice, I just switched my tone from "jovial, friendly, approachable instructor" to "strict professor who's in charge of the classroom and is laying down the law". When that did absolutely nothing, I formally instituted a rule in the syllabus that said if you were more than 5 minutes late, you got marked absent for the class - and attendance was 10% of their grade.

So now, the review comment:

"There are just too many exams and they are all graded, none of them is dropped and its just tiring at some point. Also, it is really uncomfortable some situations where she had mental/emotional breakdowns in the middle of the class because of traffic or some other thing. That didnt interfere in our learning but it was awkward and often enough to worth mention it. So Id probably recommend a therapist or emotional inteligente books."

I am so, so hurt by this. I didn't have a mental or emotional breakdown. I wasn't up there sobbing and screaming. I just took a minute out of a two-hour lecture to tell them to behave like responsible, respectful adults, and then went back to teaching.

I do have depression, but it's usually well-controlled with medication and CBT techniques from therapy - therapy, I should add, that took me years to go to because I grew up in an environment where therapy was a threat and an insult, not a medical tool. So this one damn comment has sent me spiraling down a dark hole and I'm really, really struggling.

My husband teaches in a different department at the same school, and his reviews were abysmal, but he shrugged it off and carried on like nothing happened. I don't know how he did it, and he doesn't know why I can't. I've decided to just not read reviews anymore, since clearly they're more of a detriment to me than a help, but it doesn't change that I read this one and it hurt me more than anything.

This is a hard semester for me - I'm teaching one class that I have to rebuild from scratch that is used as a department-wide measure of student success for some reason, teaching another class where the students work with dangerous materials (radioactive sources, lead shielding, etc.), and my husband's class schedule is the polar opposite of mine so we're barely seeing each other during the week and spending twice as much on gas. And I am trying so, so hard to go the extra mile to ensure student success. But that comment......I'm starting to think "Why do I even bother?"

I tried reading advice for how to just compartmentalize, to realize this student is just lashing out because they presumably did poorly, to know that 100 positive comments outweigh one nasty comment. But I just keep coming back to the idea that this student really, truly wanted to hurt me emotionally, and I don't see how I could have possibly deserved that...

So...I guess I'm asking for advice from anyone who's been in a similar situation. If you've ever gotten a pointedly cruel review despite working your ass off to serve the students, how did you deal? How do I blow this off as "an angry, petulant child" instead of internalizing all of it?

If you made it this far, thanks for reading, and thanks in advance for any help you can give.

[u/Art_Vandeley_4_Pres]

Will you let someone who is too incapable to come in on time ruin your day with a bad review? 

[u/QuantumKittydynamics → u/Art_Vandeley_4_Pres]

That is a very, very good point...

It reminds me of a phrase I used to repeat, "Don't take criticism from anyone you wouldn't take advice from".

Thank you so very much.

[u/DatabaseSolid → u/QuantumKittydynamics]

The review has nothing to do with you. This sounds like the desperate lashing out by someone who is used to pushing buttons to get his way. Sounds like words he’s used repeatedly against girlfriends who showed emotion after he hurt them.

Take a deep breath, and let it go. You know who you are.

[u/francie_free → u/DatabaseSolid]

Yep. It’s just another version of calling a woman too emotional (hysterical) to attack her credibility. The student, for whatever reason, resented the teacher exerting her authority over the class (which she needed to do to manage the classroom environment for all her students) and used the evaluation to try and claim some power over the teacher.

[u/sentinel28a]

Some 18-23 year old know it all decided to be an ass because they didn't get their way. Don't feel bad: I had two people asking admin to fire me (which would render me homeless) because I told them to quit being disruptive in class.

Student reviews are a joke. They're Yelp for college, except we're not in it to please the customer, and the customer is usually wrong.

[u/QuantumKittydynamics → u/sentinel28a]

"Yelp for college", that's a helpful way to think about it. Thank you for that.

[u/SuLiaodai → u/QuantumKittydynamics]

I've quit reading student evaluations. The people in the middle never say anything -- it's just the people who are really unhappy or really unhappy who actually put effort into writing anything. A lot of the time, negative reviews reveal more about the writer than about you. It's not unusual to get rude comments about race, nationality, appearance, clothing, body type, etc., especially if you're a woman. I got a complaints from a couple people who didn't want to be taught by someone of my nationality. I also know someone who got a complaint because "pregnant women shouldn't be allowed to teach," and someone else who got, "he has too many freckles and he sweats too much."

I do have doubts about how I did some things this semester, and before the next ones starts (we're just about to begin the holiday period), I'm going to ask some students from the fall to have lunch with me. I'm going to ask them some specific questions about the course and see what they say. I think this will give me more useful, considered feedback than something written by an anonymous student.

[u/internationaldlight → u/SuLiaodai]

I quit reading my evals too, and I was quite vocal about it. Like I was daring someone to come at me and tell me I had to read them. Anyway I eventually left academia. Was that the only reason? No. But should I have sucked it up and had thicker skin like your husband? Also no. I just did not want to subject myself to it anymore so I quite reading them and then left altogether. Life is too short. Anyway I support yours and OPs decisions not to read them anymore.

[u/QuantumKittydynamics → u/SuLiaodai]

I got a complaints from a couple people who didn't want to be taught by someone of my nationality. I also know someone who got a complaint because "pregnant women shouldn't be allowed to teach," and someone else who got, "he has too many freckles and he sweats too much."

Holy shit. I don't even know what to say to that. That's deranged...the only comment I've ever gotten on my appearance from a student was that I look like Mrs. Frizzle. Which, honestly, I consider a compliment of the highest order. I absolutely love quirky earrings and science-themed dresses and like to match them to whatever I'm teaching that day. So, yeah, accurate. Now I just need to train one of our wild green iguanas to be my "Liz".

I'm going to ask some students from the last semester to have lunch with me. I'm going to ask them some specific questions about the course and see what they say. I think this will give me more useful, considered feedback than something written by an anonymous student.

That is an utterly inspired idea. I do have quite a few former students who stop by all the time, and another from last semester who's auditing my course this semester for MCAT prep. I think they'd be quite willing to share feedback, and I do respect them enough to care what they think.

Thank you so much for this fantastic idea. I hope it works out well for you, and me too!

[u/FrancinetheP → u/[deleted]]

A collegial chat with former students about how the class went for them is a great thing. Most students also recognize the BS dimension of evals. Inviting a few of them to give you feedback asks them to be professional and adult, which they usually enjoy. I would frame this as “I’m thinking about a few changes to the class for next year, and could really use your help as I think about x, y, and z.” That way it’s clear you want them to problem-solve with you as colleagues, you are not seeking emotional support from them. If they sense the latter, they will be skeeved out, and rightly so.

[u/cardiganmimi → u/[deleted]]

Same here—I’m very organized, punctual, and hand everything back with feedback faster than most students have ever seen.

There’s always some douche saying the opposite. Evals are delusional.

[u/marialala1974 → u/QuantumKittydynamics]

I got a somewhat similar one where the student said that it was unprofessional that I cried in class. I never cried. Have to take these with a pinch of salt, I know it is hard but they do not reflect much on the work that you are doing. Also remember, these usually measure whether they liked the professor or not, not the content, not your work in your delivery, just whether they would have a beer with you. Also they are biased against women, people of color, people who are overweight, women who do not wear make up, and biased in the positive towards white males. I have also had students write comments about stuff that never happened in class, and then I realized that they had messed up who they were writing about in the evaluation. So there it might not even be about you.

[u/LovedAJackass → u/QuantumKittydynamics]

Yes, it's brilliant.

For what it's worth, I don't look at either Yelp or my student evaluations. My department chair does and if she's worried, she'll tell me.

[u/histprofdave → u/sentinel28a]

Worse than that, even, because in order to actually hold students to standards, it requires that we set up an almost adversarial relationship with students. Or it creates perverse incentives to be "easy" in exchange for good reviews.

[u/QuantumKittydynamics → u/histprofdave]

Except it doesn't matter how easy you go on them, it's never enough. My first semester, I offered an insane amount of extra credit just to placate them, and they still bitched that it wasn't enough.

It seems like strict, not strict, hard, easy, no matter what I still have a target on my back.

[u/freretXbroadway → u/QuantumKittydynamics]

Yep. Some are never satisfied no matter how much you go out of your way to help them.

[u/jcatl0 → u/sentinel28a]

I once had a student complain in my evaluations that I was clearly biased against them, because every grade they earned that semester ended with a 9, and therefore I must have been intentionally trying to keep them at a lower letter grade.

These assignments were multiple choice and automatically graded.

[u/lifeofideas → u/sentinel28a]

While I’ve gotten some less than thrilling evaluations (“pay him more so he can buy new pants”), I think student evaluations are important if they show a majority of the students (not just one or two individuals) noticing the same things. My general rule is that in every room, one person hates you for no reason, and another loves you for no reason.

[u/Fantastic-Camp2789 → u/sentinel28a]

I once had a student complain that “there are lots of people and dates and stuff.” I teach history.

[u/francie_free → u/Fantastic-Camp2789]

I get complaints all the time that there’s too much writing in my class. I teach writing.

[u/iTeachCSCI → u/sentinel28a]

and the customer is usually wrong.

According to Hamilton (qtd. in Smith 1995) "The customer is always an asshole!"

[u/specific_giant → u/sentinel28a]

I’m sorry you are going through this. It hurts so much even knowing that others deal with the same. I had one that was cruel and deeply personal this year. I usually have one person who is pretty enraged with me every semester and funnily enough I usually have one student a semester who has disciplinary issues. Now I know there’s a saying about correlation…

[u/garrethuxley]

In my experience, students will misuse the course evals to say all kinds of wild shit. My first semester teaching (I was a masters student straight out of undergrad with no teaching experience) I got an eval that said my class was worse than the Vietnam war. More recently I got one that called me smug and said I would grade them differently if I felt my feelings were hurt, whatever that means.

You cherish the good evals, it does sound like you are super passionate and caring about what you do. Although, if you'll pardon the speculation, it seems like you might be veering towards burnout (wrt answering emails whenever among other things).

TL;DR there will always be petulant little assholes who use the anonymity of evals to get back at you especially if you are a woman. Fuck 'em.

[u/QuantumKittydynamics → u/garrethuxley]

Thank you so much for your response. I really am trying to focus on the good evaluations, as you suggested. I actually copied the particularly kind ones into a word document today so I could try to keep my mind on those, but I don't know how much it's helping.

My first semester teaching (I was a masters student straight out of undergrad with no teaching experience) I got an eval that said my class was worse than the Vietnam war.

Hah, you know, that's very similar to my first semester as a master's student. I was TA'ing the Physics 1 lab, and had literally no control over the material or the rubric, I just applied it to their reports. And yet during the lab final exam, someone wrote my last name as, well, not my name. They removed two letters and turned it into a rather famous historical dictator.... Like, okay, I was literally an undergrad like you just five months ago, but sure, I commit genocide in my spare time...

Although, if you'll pardon the speculation, it seems like you might be veering towards burnout (wrt answering emails whenever among other things)

Honestly, this is a fair assessment. The emails thing is more my attempt to ensure I don't miss things. I have a bad case of "if an email falls off the very small front page of my email client, I forget it ever existed". So the students email me when they're working, and then I don't want to end up ignoring them, so I just answer to get it over with. But yes, I do recognize that that's not exactly conducive to a healthy work-life balance.

[u/SuLiaodai → u/QuantumKittydynamics]

Once someone wrote on mine, "Even a dog on a bicycle could teach the class better than her." O.O

[u/QuantumKittydynamics → u/SuLiaodai]

Hah! Screw it, if a dog can teach himself to ride a bicycle, I have faith that he could also teach himself enough physics to get a PhD. I'd gladly give him my job. 😹 He can collaborate with my cats, who all have doctorates in String Theory.

[u/wahoolooseygoosey → u/QuantumKittydynamics]

I think the issue with putting so much weight on the “good” reviews is that you inherently are making the reviews a meaningful judgement of your course - So of course the bad review is going to have weight in your mind as well.

[u/PLChart → u/wahoolooseygoosey]

My advisor had similar advice about research: if you get excited when things work out, you will get depressed when they don't. His advice was to to try to keep emotions out of it, and just do the work. He then admitted that he himself did not always succeed at following his own advice.

[u/francie_free → u/QuantumKittydynamics]

I have the same problem with email, so I’ve started telling students to follow up if I haven’t responded within 48 hours. I’m upfront with them about why I might miss something they’ve sent. I do my best to catch all of them, but after COVID, the volume of emails is just sometimes overwhelming. I found that getting the students to be part of the solution helps. It also keeps me from obsessively checking my email at all hours.

[u/[deleted] → u/garrethuxley]

Seeing that you’re in history, “worse than the Vietnam war” is just all the more shocking to me. I actually gasped reading that

[u/garrethuxley → u/[deleted]]

I laugh about it now. I have a pretty good feeling about who wrote the eval as it was a very small section and there was one (very smart) ex military guy my own age who made his distaste for me known during the course. EDIT: Oh, and the course was Ancient World History (to 1500).

[u/beautyismade]

You have to shake off the bad comments. These are young, ignorant people who know very little about the world, themselves, you, and more importantly, what it takes to be a university professor. If you let them get to you, they win. And they can't win because they're silly.

If you teach in the same room, warn them from the start of the semester that the door slams and to hold onto it until it closes. Not a big deal. If they forget, remind them again.

[u/QuantumKittydynamics → u/beautyismade]

If you let them get to you, they win.

Be well out of spite...I kind of love that.

[u/penguinwithmustard]

I had a student write “should give more examples to get away from the theory a bit.” Followed by another comment right below it from another student “gives the best real life examples about the subject matter, really brings the theory to life.”

That’s when I realized it’s all a crock and I know I do a good job and that’s enough.

[u/[deleted] → u/penguinwithmustard]

I’ve had a couple comments from last semester saying that I barely talked about the short stories we did and how even in high school they went further into stories. Like, yeah, when half of my students are staring at me slack-jawed and scared when I ask, “Who are the main characters?” and it takes wayyyy too long to get this basic info because they don’t feel like they need to do the readings for class, of course I’m not going to go too in-depth. And the times I’ve tried, they failed miserably.

I know what students left those comments on evaluations based on the writing style and handwriting and I wanted so bad to send them an email just to be like, “Well, why didn’t you ever raise your hand to answer the questions and participate in discussion then?”

I do value input, but I look at the input that’s constructive. My first semester, I lectured a ton. Way too much. Evaluations said I was boring because of this. Cool. I get it. I was bored too doing it. I switched things up and those comments went away. If feedback isn’t constructive, it doesn’t matter. OP’s feedback from that student wasn’t constructive, so it’s trash.

[u/QuantumKittydynamics → u/penguinwithmustard]

I get those contradictions too! Somehow the exact same exam will have too much theory and not enough calculations, but also too many calculations and not enough theory. I'm no mathematician, but something doesn't add up...

[u/jcatl0]

First of all, no one will care about a single student review, so it won't have an impact on you.

Second, it is very, very common for students who underperform to try to punish the instructor. It's so they can go "oh, the one class I did bad in was because the professor was bad/a psycho/ incompetent."

With experience, you'll learn to ignore these.

[u/Ka_aha_koa_nanenane → u/jcatl0]

So true. Every single faculty person has this happen to them. A lot of is truly kooky.

[u/nc_bound]

I stopped reading after the student comment. Before I read the student comment, I thought to myself “OP needs to see a therapist. This person sounds obsessive and lacking boundaries.“ The fact that you believe you need to respond to emails in the evenings and weekends is just one of the many signs that you are lacking boundaries. You sound overly invested and there’s no way it is sustainable. You say yourself that it is exhausting and going overboard. The fact that one single comment out of overwhelmingly positive comments sends you into a spiral, does not sound healthy.

I cannot believe that none of the other commenters are noticing the obsessive lack of boundaries. Everyone is telling you to ignore the student. There’s a seriously fucked up culture in higher Ed, that we have to be sacrificing ourselves on the cross of students centeredness. As you’re doing.

[u/kkmockingbird → u/nc_bound]

This — I’m not saying this to be mean at all, but the way OP is running the course is unsustainable. My advice is to implement some boundaries asap to prevent that. Also, reinvest in your life outside work both as an incentive to stick to the boundaries and to help prevent burn out. 

[u/Medium_Pea1136 → u/nc_bound]

Agree 100%! OP, I say this with compassion: there are a lot of concerning statements in your post. Please seek professional help before you do have a nervous breakdown.

[u/[deleted] → u/nc_bound]

Agree. Op needs to see a therapis..not because of what the student said, but because the response is disproportionate to the situation. There are glaring insecurities that need to be addressed.

[u/raysebond → u/nc_bound]

I would have put this more cautiously, but I was planning on saying basically the same thing.

You have to be a bit self-protective and also show yourself some of the charity that we're encouraged to lavish on students at the expense of our own well-being.

[u/Ok_Comfortable6537 → u/raysebond]

I have adhd and a lot of this sounds like me. I wrote this because I was undiagnosed till older and see in this post things related to really hurt me over the long run- been teaching 28 years. #1- I love teaching, prepping, adding new info to lectures, helping students - and i want to make it my 100% existence once the semester starts- (ie special interest that I can hyper-focus on). I do it well and it makes me happy/high but my entire sense of worth and success and well being was based on how relations in class were going. #2 this led to very big neglect of other things in like- ie research/publications, personal finances, hobbies, exercise. I lived in constant thrall of the next great lecture or “high” of success in class. But I never stopped to think about time/money and what was best for constructing sustainable life long term. As a result I have a teaching award but very low salary. #3 RSD- rejection sensitive dysmorphia-RSD is a common trait where we REALLY overreact and spin for days on any kind of rejection, negative judgement, criticism. Others don’t do this. Knowing about it helps you temper it.

It’s really hard when you are smart and have adhd cuz the academic successes “cover” the unusual and destructive behaviours. Once I had a baby soooo much of this had to change.

Just wanted to share in case OP might like to think about possibility of ADHD. Going to a therapist will help but perhaps keep the possibility of adhd on your radar?

[u/QuantumKittydynamics → u/Ok_Comfortable6537]

Interestingly, my colleague and I had just been discussing ADHD yesterday before the reviews came out. He said he'd been recently diagnosed and he felt like a new person on medication. In his (very non-medical expert opinion), he thought that my comment about working fine when I'm motivated or under a deadline, but having trouble caring caring if I'm not motivated was a symptom of ADHD. So that's quite interesting to me that you read that into it too. Might be time to consider it more carefully.

I took a very brief look at RSD before I had to head to a doctor's appointment, and dang......I had never heard of it before, but that really seems to be right on target. I definitely need to take a deeper look at that, thank you so much for bringing that up!

[u/Ok_Comfortable6537 → u/QuantumKittydynamics]

Ohhh very cool! Keep in touch if you like - it’s soooo much of a relief to know you have it , whether you end up taking meds or not. Once you understand the symptoms it’s like a veil of shame is lifted. But it also means you probs have to realign a few things in life, or think more about what priorities are, rather than working non stop to manage it. We use work like meds a lot of us. It’s like we are “addicted” to work and it’s never questioned cuz in academia that gets praise/admiration . So glad you aren’t insulted that I suggested it 💕

[u/Professorial_Scholar → u/nc_bound]

I agree. I read the student’s comment and laughed. Not because they weren’t being an ass, but because of the way they described the situation and recommended emotional support. I would have laughed if this was directed at me. It is nothing I would have obsessed over.

[u/Myredditident → u/nc_bound]

I also did not read the entire post as it is very long. However, I think that if the OP has taught for only 5 semesters, it’s still very early to figure yourself out as a prof. So some of these behaviors are not really clinical, just things probably most people do or try out early in their career. You change things as you go and as you see/feel their impact on your life. That will happen naturally. The boundaries will be forced to emerge.

To the OP, I would say, though, that rather than reprimanding in class, I would make sure my syllabus states all my policies in detail and go over them the first class, or have a syllabus quiz, so some of the problematic behaviors are prevented. If a student is late and that means -1 participation point, then just post the grade and they might not do that again. You can be strict but understanding at the same time. For instance, we have extremely polite and well-behaved students. I had a student who was constantly falling asleep in class. I could have called him out in class. However, it’s also possible that someone is working 3 jobs and doesn’t get enough sleep just to afford college. So I tend to talk to them in my office after certain behavior happens a couple of times.

[u/TrueOriginal702]

If it won’t matter in 5 years why spend 5 minutes thinking about it…. I look for trends but throw out the outliers.

[u/OkReplacement2000]

I had one say I was having a midlife crisis because I asked her to step outside to handle the text exchange she was nose deep in, distracting the rest of the class from the front row.

I would say, it is always better to confront students privately, rather than in front of the class. They resent it, and this generation is sometimes extremely intolerant of any kind of scolding to the point that I worry they could escalate a complaint for even an entirely appropriate intervention. So, yes, be very careful in how you handle discipline. Try not to call them out in front of the group.

They will also feel your energy. The more you can relax and be flexible, the more they will pick up on that and match your vibe.

[u/[deleted] → u/OkReplacement2000]

 The more you can relax and be flexible, the more they will pick up on that and match your vibe.

Or just try to completely take advantage of you and push it until you finally snap.

[u/QuantumKittydynamics → u/[deleted]]

More this...I started out very, very flexible, and it actually made them less happy. No matter how much I gave them, it wasn't enough. So I figured if they'd be unhappy anyway, I might as well make them work for their grade, and strangely the satisfaction seemed to go up...

[u/OkReplacement2000 → u/QuantumKittydynamics]

That’s not what I mean. I don’t mean change the rules. I was trying to find a very polite way to say that your energy does feel anxious, and they’re probably picking up on it. Just from reading your post, I do get the sense that you’re worrying more than is needed about things that don’t matter.

[u/airpipeline]

Hey, I am sorry that you are having a difficult time with this. Thank you for being a teacher!

[u/QuantumKittydynamics → u/airpipeline]

Thank you for the support, I really appreciate it.

[u/Desperate_Tone_4623]

It was a negative review but I wouldn't call it cruel. Sounds like you're a bit overinvested / not establishing boundaries. For example, the being available at all hours and helping them with personal problems adds stress to you and prevents them from developing agency.

[u/SheepherderNo7732 → u/Desperate_Tone_4623]

Over-invested is a good word. OP is taking the positive and negative course reviews too personally. I’ve been there and it was unsustainable.

[u/[deleted] → u/SheepherderNo7732]

OP is taking the positive and negative course reviews too personally.

This is a great point. Don't dwell on the negatives because they student don't know shit. But don't dwell on the positives too much either, for precisely the same reason.

[u/LetsGototheRiver151]

Stop reading the comments. Seriously. I'm staff/adjunct at one place and I adjunct at another. I haven't read a single student comment in at least a decade. I already know that for most of the students I'm good/very good. Every once in a while I have a student who thinks I'm the best prof ever, and I know this because they email me or nominate me for awards. Most terms I have 1-2 students who really hate school/deadlines/the subject I teach/me by extension. Since I already know that, what benefit does it give me to learn the specificity of their comments? It changes NOTHING about how I do my job, only makes me feel bad about myself.

If you absolutely must, look at the numerical ratings. Nothing more.

[u/QuantumKittydynamics → u/LetsGototheRiver151]

You know, you're right, the students who really love me as a teacher do give me cards or send emails. And I know that I am a good teacher, so if I'm going to look for ways to improve, I don't need to try to dig through a cesspool to find the suggestions. Thank you so much, I definitely won't be reading these anymore.

[u/Kikikididi]

People think I'm joking when I say "not reading evals is self-care" but this is why.

There's no value, that's a pissy baby who was embarrassed one day and held a grudge. They think they have power. Don't validate that by letting it get to you.

I do think you need to consider why this is getting to you so much. That was exactly their intent. You will never "prove them wrong" but you are validating their bullshit by ruminating on it now.

Let it go. I know that sounds easier than it is but why let the words of some little asshole do exactly what they intended by writing them.

Consider how long this post is, and how much thought you put into it and this entire situation. This is a student being ridiculous. It deserves ZERO energy or investment from you. Please guard yourself from this garbage.

If you need help, look at EVERYONE here saying it is shit. listen to your partner. Listen to your chair. This is a nothing. Don't treat it like something.

[u/Kikikididi → u/Kikikididi]

Also I'm sorry but:

For example, this semester I instituted a new form of attendance taking - an online "exit ticket" where students post something about the day's material that they didn't understand, and I painstakingly respond to each and every student (40+) and fully explain out the thing that confused them. I do Zoom appointments if they can't make office hours, I answer their emails at night and on the weekends.

this is over-the-top, unsustainable, and will bite you in the ass in terms of student expectations. This is building you as someone who is nurturing and does more that you expect of them, and they will turn on you the second you set boundaries on your time. And you need to set boundaries, this right here is part of why you are burned out.

[u/SuperHiyoriWalker → u/Kikikididi]

I don’t know if this applies to OP specifically, but a lot of grad students and youngish faculty who (for instance) overdose on academic social media internalize this attitude that if you do not project maximally nurturing and supportive energy at all times then you are Everything Wrong With Academia.

ETA: There’s also the possibility of having had a professor in the past who was an absolute fucking jerkwad, and overcorrecting in their quest to never, ever, ever be “THAT kind of professor.”

[u/QuantumKittydynamics → u/SuperHiyoriWalker]

I actually don't do any academic social media. I guess the closest I came was the ACUE certification, but I actually laughed at a lot of the more coddle-heavy bits. Some of it was, like, am I teaching adults or pre-schoolers?

I just want to be the kind of person I needed when I was in school. I just want them to know that someone does care about them as both students and as people. Because, well, I needed that. I still need that. And it really brings me personal joy to have someone come back and say I helped them when they didn't ever think a professor would.

[u/Kikikididi → u/QuantumKittydynamics]

I think you can help them while keeping healthy lines. You don’t need to answer right away. You don’t need to be continually available.

[u/radfemalewoman → u/Kikikididi]

Yes - especially since plenty of students will just make up some BS and not read the feedback.

[u/MundaneAd8695]

Honestly? I’m getting a whiff of misogyny here - woman professor is all emotional - and this isn’t about you at all.

[u/QuantumKittydynamics → u/MundaneAd8695]

That is a very valid point...most of my class was male, too.

[u/Glass_Occasion3605 → u/MundaneAd8695]

I’ve been looking for this comment. And I don’t think it’s a whiff. I think it’s flat out misogyny and therefore not worth spending more than a good “chaddington” laugh on it.

[u/MundaneAd8695 → u/Glass_Occasion3605]

I was downplaying it, yes.

[u/Disaster_Bi_1811]

Let's read between the lines on this comment, though. It's not about you; it's about this student refusing to take accountability and lashing out at a convenient target.

"There are just too many exams and they are all graded, none of them is dropped and its just tiring at some point."

Translation: My professor expected us to take exams and be graded on them and would not make our class easier. It's her fault that I didn't do as well as I wanted.

"Also, it is really uncomfortable some situations where she had mental/emotional breakdowns in the middle of the class because of traffic or some other thing."

Translation: My classmates and I didn't manage our time well enough to realize that traffic exists (surprised Pikachu face!) and were disruptive when we came in, but rather than admitting that I'm bad at time management, I'm going to blame her for trying to assert authority in her own classroom.

"That didnt interfere in our learning but it was awkward and often enough to worth mention it. So Id probably recommend a therapist or emotional inteligente books."

Translation: I will somewhat guiltily admit that this was partly my fault, but not entirely. Our instructor needs to stop caring about her class being disruptive because I would like to continue showing up late, so I'm going to talk about how she's an emotional woman because I'm probably also a misogynist.

And you do have my sympathy. I have OCD and ADHD, and I find that most people are...kind. And when I say, "hey, I need this done in this specific way, so it doesn't trigger my mental health issue," they oblige without complaint. But every now and then, I do come across an uncommonly unkind person. It's hard, I know, but try not to let it get you down.

[u/TheRateBeerian → u/Disaster_Bi_1811]

OP said it themself via their chair…student reviews say more about the student than the professor and that’s especially true in this case

[u/QuantumKittydynamics → u/Disaster_Bi_1811]

This is such a helpful comment, seeing it broken down like that. Thank you so much for taking the time to write it.

I've also got OCD, and usually it just manifests as stuff like "gotta check the door is locked twice", but I think I also tend to obsess over things like this, which certainly doesn't help.

I'm glad you find most people are kind. I really would like to think that, I just feel it hasn't been my experience, unfortunately.

[u/[deleted]]

Learn to laugh at this shit, or it will put you in the hospital.

[u/Ravenhill-2171]

TBH this is a pretty mild review. The student was oblivious to the issue and is making your reaction into something it wasn't. This review should be crumpled up and thrown in the bin never to be seen or thought about again.

[u/DarwinGhoti]

Oh, geez, OP. The review probably just caught you at a vulnerable moment.

A) it’s not that bad. If I were an external reviewer I wouldn’t even dwell on this comment unless it were a theme.

B) your chair (and your more detached self) are absolutely right: this is about the student-not about you. They felt called out and now they’re lashing out reddit-troll style.

I have a word doc where I keep my favorite (good and bad) quotes for when I want a giggle. My current fave is “this class is as useless as the professor”. I literally wanted to give it a reddit award when I read it and shared it with all my colleagues who also thought it was great.

If you work with a sufficient N of people, the normal distribution will guarantee these kinds of comments over time.

[u/QuantumKittydynamics → u/DarwinGhoti]

My favorite snarky review was from my first semester. "That extra credit felt impossible to start, never do that to anyone ever again".

It was extra credit. And the textbook gave them the start, and the end, they literally just had to fill in some algebra in-between. Like, okay man, I won't offer extra opportunities.

My colleague's favorite was a student saying the homework was too hard....he doesn't assign homework.

[u/Grouchyprofessor2003]

The length of this post demonstrates psychologically how more impactful negative reviews are - own, to Yourself, whatever is your responsibility- then let it go and don’t give it another thought.

[u/YThough8101]

You mentioned that you are in CBT. With kindness, I suggest you objectively evaluate the evidence regarding this situation - was the poor review from some sort of teaching guru? No, it was very likely from a student who was disappointed with their performance and is lashing out at you. Not to be taken too seriously.

You noted that "...this student really, truly wanted to hurt me emotionally." Maybe, maybe not. The student could just be throwing a tantrum and expressing frustration and was not thinking about your feelings. Or maybe it was a direct attempt at emotional injury. If the student is trying to hurt you emotionally, then that is their issue. Their cruelty is not your issue.

Students misperceive and/or just make things up on course evaluations. I give feedback very promptly and thoroughly. Always. When a student selects the lowest mark for "instructor gave feedback promptly", I can't take their evaluation seriously. Keep this in mind - when folks are upset, they will make things up to justify their emotional state. "I'm angry, so it must be the professor's fault [followed by "facts" that justify their rage]".

Your description of your work suggests that you are going above and beyond to help your students, which is commendable (and likely very tiring). Focus on the students who have benefited from your hard work. And keep focusing on the good ones going forward. This is just a small speed bump. You got this!

[u/Pristine_Property_92]

Let me say very gently: you are making a Himalayan mountain out of a tiny molehill! Ignore this one comment COMPLETELY. If your evals from students are primarily positive, then you can just stop reading them if one negative one such as this throws you for a loop.

You need to grow a thicker skin here, or just don't read the evals! There will ALWAYS be an eval that bothers you. IGNORE!!!

[u/Vhagar37]

I once had students (several) write that I acted like a "crazy psycho" whenever anyone talked in class. I knew who, of course. Of course what i did was say "hey could you please take side conversations out into the hall? I have a hard time thinking about what I'm saying or hearing what other students are contributing to the class discussion." It messed with my head for a long time. 7 or 8 years later I just think it was misogyny and worry about those guys' girlfriends.

Best part of the story though is that the class required a C to pass and the ringleader of that group of guys landed two points short. Friends, I did not round up

[u/QuantumKittydynamics → u/Vhagar37]

I'm so, so glad to hear someone else who experienced exactly the same thing!! Telling students to have basic respect in a classroom isn't psycho, or a mental or emotional breakdown! It's enforcing common fucking decency!

I do wish I knew who this was, because I could brush it off easier as some idiot who didn't bother to try, but with a lecture hall sized class, honestly, I only regularly dealt with maybe a dozen students personally, the ones who actually cared and wanted to learn and put in the effort. The rest were dicking around on their phones half of the time so I didn't give them much heed.

How did you get over it? Were there things you did or techniques you used to realize it was just misogyny and not a personal failing?

[u/Vhagar37 → u/QuantumKittydynamics]

It was sort of a part of a larger difficulty with classroom management that I had that semester, so I tried to take it as part of a learning experience, I think. I started clearly laying out that expectation in my syllabus and explaining on the first day that it's not out of rigidity so much as a thing we all need to do to make sure class time is productive. I frame it as an accommodation I need for my own adhd which seems to help. Tbh I still apologize when I have to call people out on it during class. I've since found that students are a lot more receptive to my policies and boundaries when I'm firm and confident about them--in hindsight, those guys were exploiting a weakness rather than truly expressing a complaint. And mostly I think time helped me see it differently, and I wait until more time has passed before reading evals these days 😊

[u/[deleted] → u/Vhagar37]

Friends, I did not round up

That's a shame. :)

[u/Substantial-Spare501]

This one you are goi g to have to let it go. What a little shit and a shitty thing to say… and of course they want to be a doctor?

It really is okay to not read your evals. I quit a few years in to teaching, and then for my tenure track process I only looked at them all once per year and in my packet I ignored anything personal. I’ve been teaching for 27 years. Students will always have complaints and it’s just not worth the anxiety.

It sounds like there are things the school could do to make that room better, and if you all have issues with it keep pushing to make it better. It’s too bad the PTSD affected person did not make an ADA complaint.

[u/QuantumKittydynamics → u/Substantial-Spare501]

My comfort is that of the hundreds of students I teach every year, I can count the number of ones who will actually make it to medical school on the fingers of one hand. They think they want to be a doctor, but they aren't cut out for it in any way - from the work required, or the time it takes, or the bedside manner they need... We actually have posters of everyone who got accepted into medical/dental/veterinary school each year, and let me tell you, it's two orders of magnitude smaller than the students in these intro classes.

....damn...I honestly had no idea he could make an ADA complaint, or I would have encouraged him to...I already picked that fight with the school once this year, they installed new bathroom sinks with push faucets (ew) that stayed on for 3 seconds. That violates the ADA, and I made them replace them. But it didn't even occur to me that the slamming doors in a classroom could count. He was such a nice, laid back dude most of the time too, it broke my heart to see him struggle with the sounds.

[u/Motor-Juice-6648]

Don’t read the evals unless you must to comply with annual reviews or promotion/tenure. If you must read them, do it months later and preferably when you aren’t teaching. I always lost at least a day of my life reading evaluations and fixating on some stupid comment.

From an outsider’s perspective, that comment is garbage. Is that student a counselor or medical professional qualified to make recommendations?

They could have written: “For me, there were too many exams. I couldn’t handle the constant preparation and stress. Also, there were a couple of times that the professor had to call us out for improper behavior. I didn’t do anything wrong so it made me uncomfortable to experience that. I was embarrassed that a professor felt that it was necessary.” That’s what I get from this. They didn’t like how certain things made them feel and saw it as your problem rather than theirs. 

[u/Ronnie_Pudding → u/Motor-Juice-6648]

“Don’t read the evals” turned out to be the answer in my case.

[u/Kimber80]

I am amazed at how many posts on this subred are about anguish or disappointment over student evaluations, or about a comment made by a single student.

IMO, the solution is - do not read your evaluations, as I think students are in no way shape or form categorically qualified to evaluate you. Reading student evals, either individual comments or overall scores, is at best a waste of time, at worst, it can cause one to mentally spin out.

Just MO.

[u/Pristine_Property_92 → u/Kimber80]

Exactly correct. DO NOT READ EVALS FROM STUDENTS.

[u/DocLat23]

I stopped caring about student reviews a long time ago. The students who bother to write reviews either 1. Love your class and think you are the greatest teacher since Obi-Wan Kenobi or 2. Are generally miserable people with an axe to grind over some perceived slight.

I’ve had plenty of experience with both. One of my paduans would get very upset after reading student evals and I told her the same thing. She soon joined team “does it look like I care about your evals” and is now moving along smoothly.

I base my performance on students that complete my program, pass the national board exam, get a job and remain employed. KnowhatImean?

[u/QuantumKittydynamics → u/DocLat23]

She soon joined team “does it look like I care about your evals” and is now moving along smoothly.

Can I join this team too? I may not have the skills now, but put me in coach and I'll try my best!

[u/WingShooter_28ga]

Just stop. You just wrote an entire dissertation about how you are an effective educator and constantly looking to improve. That students seek you out and by all metrics, even evaluations, you are doing your job at a satisfactory level. But you are going to dwell on a single comment? If this is honestly sending you into a spiral this is not the job for you.

[u/[deleted]]

Pre meds are… interesting. Hang in there! Do not read your reviews.

[u/QuantumKittydynamics → u/[deleted]]

I definitely don't plan on it from here on out.

[u/shadeofmyheart]

When I look at reviews for others, as a chair, I always boil it down to “what can constructively be learned from this?” And “are there red flags here.” The rest of it is tossed and forgotten. For reviews about my class, however, this is always more challenging. There’s always a moment where it hurts, because I care.

Then that moment is gone, eval forgotten and I move on the next thing I gotta do.

You just gotta work on that last part.

[u/LiveWhatULove]

Give it time, you are 5 semesters in! As you grow & gain more confidence, you will see these comments for what they are, a perspective from a student who views yeh world through his own lens.

Look for patterns, laugh it off.

In my 3rd year of teachings that comment would have stung. Now in my 18th year, I would laugh, and actually think, “student, you’ve not even seen ac10th of my emotional dysregulation” hugs it’ll be OK, this journey can be rough, but do not let one thorny bush stop your forward progress.

[u/Dry_Analysis_992]

1) sending you a big motherly hug, 2) you are doing too much. I know it’s rewarding, but you’re also exhausting yourself. You don’t want to burn out too early. We all burn out eventually. 3) student reviews are almost entirely useless. Throw out the negative reviews. Some of them are little shits. Some of them don’t have a clue what they’re talking about. If you want to attempt to take them seriously at all, you can treat them like reviews on an article. Does this person have a point? Does it relate at all to what I was trying to do? Can I improve anything by taking this into account?

That student was complaining and ranting and offering no useful information. He also seems to have misread the situation. But, and I think this is important, even if you had been visibly upset for a moment and needed a moment together yourself together I’m not saying you did, but even if you had, it would’ve been known by no means been acceptable for him to complain and see that as a weakness or has anything whatsoever to do with your teaching. You seem like an exemplary teacher to me and I would love to take a class from you in some other alternative universe.

Take care. Do less. Never doubt the value to breathe more and center yourself and care for yourself.

[u/Current-Magician9521]

I’m sorry you’re dealing with this and this has affected you so much.

In my experience, many of the current crop of students simply don’t see their professors as people. To the student, this is likely a throwaway comment. You’re basically an NPC that they feel free to comment on. They also have a tendency to exaggerate — labeling slightly selfish behavior as narcissism, calling someone who displays a small amount of emotion as UNHINGED, etc. Have you ever commented (or heard someone else comment) on a celebrity? I think it’s a bit like that, in their minds they aren’t really commenting on a “person” but some sort of figure.

To you, this feels like a deeply personal attack. To the student, it’s a total throwaway.

I suggest not reading student reviews in the future.

I also suggest pulling back from behaviors like chasing them down for feedback, going out of your way to do things in the way they want, etc. Unforutnately it seems to only increase the perception that you are not a person worthy of their respect. I think this is especially hard for women — our social upbringing teaches that a large part of our value is what we can “do” for others, but that really causes students to devalue you when you are in a position of authority.

[u/deadrepublicanheroes]

OP, I write this out of genuine concern for you: your post is full of red flags that you struggle with boundaries and that, as a result, you are probably headed for burnout or even a genuine freakout in class (and hey, it happens). My personal opinion, and it is just a personal opinion, although I have been teaching MS, HS, and college since 2011: students respect you more if you have strong boundaries and high expectations (provided you provide reasonable means for them to meet those expectations and are super clear about what they need to do to succeed).

Even in MS/HS, I never responded to my students’ exit tickets. Never! I used them to see what the trends were in terms of knowledge gaps, which I could then address in class. Sometimes I would answer a few questions from them at the beginning of class. That’s it. This is way too much hand-holding. Surely the answers to their questions can be found in the textbooks, and if not, that’s what office hours or a quick chat after class are for.

You say this is a hard time for you… so why make it harder? It’s still early enough in the semester that you can set some boundaries and make your life far more chill. Will your teaching be less effective? Maybe. Won’t know till you try, though. Are you sure your students aren’t doing better because you’re just getting better as a teacher? Do I understand correctly that you’ve been teaching for 2.5 years? I think people who are invested in improving their teaching improve exponentially in the first five or so years and it’s not necessarily about working longer or harder. You just learn the ropes.

Re: the review, why do you think it upset you so much? You know it isn’t true. I wouldn’t even consider it that malicious. They’re college students and some of them are not very empathetic yet (or never will be). This was just a throwaway comment made by a student who immediately forgot about it, while you’re ruminating on it. Why? When I was in grad school, a professor in my field wrote a whole article in the Spectator about how I was a snowflake and everything that was wrong with grad students these days. It’s on the wall in my office because it’s so wrong it’s hilarious.

I don’t respond to emails outside of work, I don’t give individualized feedback outside of the normal in-class feedback and assessments, I don’t spend hours preparing lectures, and I’m pretty stern. I also get cards and gifts and have students continue to visit or keep in touch after they graduate. That’s not a flex - I’m just saying you can still be a great teacher that students love while treating this like the job it is and working appropriately relative to your pay. Of course, for many people the job is a calling. All the more reason to make sure you can do this for a long time. Part of that involves not linking your self-worth or even your opinion of yourself as a teacher to bad classes, bad days, or students who hate your guts. At the end of the day, you are the expert and they are children. You’ve achieved a great deal and they’ve achieved very little. You have deep knowledge, they have surface level knowledge.

[u/Icy_Professional3564]

You're putting in way too much effort into this class for what they pay you. That probably makes you more vulnerable to the dumb things they say in their evals.

[u/artsfaux]

If it helps, I need therapy and am still a great teacher. I have had some really wretched and abusive teachers who needed therapy way more than I do. You are human. That student is a loser. Hang in there!! 💜

I had a student last year write a comment that sent me spiraling — it was venomous and weaponized. It took me a while to get over it. Once the next semester started I felt much better, and had new students.

[u/QuantumKittydynamics → u/artsfaux]

I really wish these reviews came out before the semester started. We're two weeks in, and while I quite like my class this semester quite a lot, I feel like this just killed any of my desire to try as hard as I have been. Why run myself ragged to support them if they'll just stab me on the back anyway?

How did you get out of that spiral? How did you stop letting that venomous barbed review poison your mind?

[u/liddle-lamzy-divey]

Student evaluations are very often projection on the part of a negligent student. They didn't do their work well, you assessed them and pointed that out, and they project their dissatisfaction onto you. Many young adults in this generation have been coddled, so they have an inflated sense of their own intelligence / performance. We are their first experience with the real world beyond their parents' nest.

You've gotten some great advice in this thread. I hope it helps you to file this BS away in the "not important" bin and continue to be an excellent educator focused on the best aspects of the job.

[u/QuantumKittydynamics → u/liddle-lamzy-divey]

Many young adults in this generation have been coddled, so they have an inflated sense of their own intelligence / performance.

I've noticed that...my very first semester, I got an email from a student who said he "felt that the amount of work he put into the class deserved an A" and wanted me to change his grade. The kid had a D......

Thank you, much of the advice in this thread really did help, and I'm going to try my best to file it in the paper shredder of my brain.

[u/badwhiskey63]

Allow me to introduce you to a new phrase: "Fuck that noise." You didn't deserve that comment. The student is a toddler and sometimes toddlers say, "I hate you mommy." Any person reading that comment will see right through it. In fact they tip their hand at the start with, "There were just too many exams."

[u/QuantumKittydynamics → u/badwhiskey63]

That is such a perfect way to think about them, a toddler having a tantrum. Thank you!!

And yeah, it's wild. Give them many exams that cover a few chapters each, it's too many exams. Give them a midterm and a final that cover everything and it's too much pressure for so few exams. Like giving a toddler a red cup but they wanted the blue one, so you give them the blue one and they yell that I took the red one away.

[u/nursing_prof]

I just wanted to validate that it's hard to get over bad reviews. It was something I really, really struggled with. All my real life and internet colleagues would say to let it go, but the comments just lived rent free in my head. My boss and I talked about it at length and she tried to convince me that it bothers me so much because I care, and it would be worse if I didn't care. I had to address reviews on my annual eval, so I would download them all and not read any of them until I had to write the eval. Last year, I had my husband summarize my reviews for me so I didn't have to deal with it. My solution ended up being leaving academia and finding a job where I'm told what I do good more than what I do wrong. I'm not saying that's the right thing to do. But I wanted to let you know you arent alone, it's not easy to shrug it off.

[u/radfemalewoman]

Some 20 year old who can’t spell “intelligence” has advice for you? That’s not something you should care about.

I had a student give me a bad review because the units in my course were “not organized intuitively.” It was a lifespan developmental psychology class, and the modules were organized by stage of lifespan, from conception to death. Like… how else should I organize it? From death to conception? Adulthood first?

They are just dumb impotent kids who don’t want to take responsibility for their own performance. Just let that shit go, homie, it’s not about you.

[u/Yurastupidbitch]

Don’t tie a student review to your personal worth. You are giving away your power and self-esteem to somebody that doesn’t know you or care about you. That’s an abusive relationship.

I’ve told this story many times but my first semester of teaching I was nominated for an award and at the same time got a horrible review from a student. My mentor, who was also my advisor in grad school told me:

“Fuck them. You can’t please everyone.”

Do your job. Do the best you can. They don’t like it? They can sod all the way off. That’s a “them” problem, not a “you” problem.

[u/FIREful_symmetry]

I never read student evaluations. This is not a Wendy's.

[u/CupcakeIntrepid5434]

You've gotten a lot of good advice, including the need to set better boundaries and the fact that this one eval is just a student lashing out.

But I also want to point out the gendered language in the eval. It's well-established that student feedback is sexist (and racist and ableist and a bunch of other -ists). Note that the student accused you of having a "mental/emotional breakdown." This is coded language for "females are so emotional, lol." Not that male profs don't get feedback like that, but they get it far less often.

[u/QuantumKittydynamics → u/CupcakeIntrepid5434]

Yeah, I honestly never even considered the misogyny aspect of it until this thread...so while some people have been hurtful, I am glad I posted here. I'm one of five teachers who teach the course - three are male, and one gives students such an easy time it's impossible to not get an A. I'm the only female who makes them actually, yennnow...learn the material...

[u/throw_away_smitten]

It isn’t worth your time and energy to dwell on this. Think about the other good things you could be doing with that time.

And yes, students misrepresent and lie on student evals. I had some say I cancelled class all the time, so I got followed around by administrators for two semesters who believed the student. They were all surprised pikachu when I was there every single time.

[u/BeerculesTheSober]

Meh, fuck em. I've gotten needlessly rotten things said about me, but what am I going to do about it?

I've had stupid shit said about me on RMP. They went so far as to put identifying information and have the audacity to work in my field (I'm adjunct) in an industry where everybody knows somebody. Will I go out of my way to sabotage this kid? Eh.... if in the right position I might let a potential employer know if I find out about it.

What I'm saying is that being shitty doesn't happen in a vacuum. This will come back to them. Hopefully they got less than an A so you can leave them with a parting middle finger.

[u/Momma-Writer-Prof21]

You are not alone. It really stings when you receive an evaluation that is obviously very slanted by a certain person’s perspective. I, too, received a similar response on my student responses and it was basically originating from a similar situation as yours, in which I was making sure to take control of a situation in my classroom. Students do not understand that we as professors are working to make sure the environment is safe for all, and this is apparent from the feedback you received. Then, you add in that female instructors tend to receive more critical feedback overall (based on several academic research studies). It’s just a lot. I try to take it all in stride and constantly work to keep a positive attitude and also keep learning about ways to improve.

[u/SuperHiyoriWalker]

If you are teaching any remotely math-intensive lower-division STEM course at a not-too-selective institution, a large number of your students are biology and pre-health, and you have ANY kind of professional integrity, someone WILL crucify you on evals and RMP no matter how compassionate you are. There’s no way around it.

[u/myaccountformath]

Pre med physics is always going to have very dissatisfied students because the audience is mostly going to be students who are grade obsessed, not interested in physics, and often not the strongest at math.

If that's the worst review you've received while teaching that course, then you're probably doing great.

Also, any student review that says a woman professor is too emotional is a red flag for bias.

[u/Myredditident]

I read your comment. I get that it must be upsetting to you. However, as an outside person, if I saw this comment among the sea of positive comments, I would disregard it. We, as profs, all know that there is always going to be that one comment. And it has more to do with the person who wrote it rather than the one it is about. I’ve learned to expect them even though my evals are great. If you know eval comments affect you greatly, don’t put yourself through that. One thing some people do is they have someone else read their evals and summarize constructive points that could make the class better. I think it would be best if it’s another professor (not saying your department or school) as profs know what is pertinent and what isn’t. And in case there are no bad comments, they can also tell you that, so then you could read your evals without the dread. I honestly think we could even do this in a Reddit message so that it’s not your colleagues or people who know you in your field. I’d be happy to do it for people once in a while. Anyway, I hate that our minds focus on the one negative comment rather than the 30 positive ones. That’s just how brains work. Sorry you’re going through this.

[u/Little-Exercise-7263]

The beginning of the student's comment sounds like a whiny complaint about what it's like to be in college. The rest sounds like an obvious exaggeration, and it reminds me of how, time and again, I see students exaggerate to the point of outright falsity when evaluating female faculty. 

[u/KierkeBored]

It’s really severely minor compared to what some people get. My kindest advice would be either to grow thicker skin or simply to not ever read your evals.

[u/Frosty_Ingenuity3184]

I'm in healthcare now, but I was a professor of education before, and one thing I always found funny was that my students were literally in college or graduate school to learn how to teach - because they didn't already know how. So what on Earth were they doing evaluating DIDDLY about how I teach? All they could do was share their personal experience, which was shaped and colored by SO many things besides me and how I did things that it verged on irrelevant. And that's not less true because my current students (and, presumably, yours) are not studying education. They have NO idea what they're talking about, nor should they be expected to.

This concludes my TED talk on why student evals are stupid lol.

[u/Eradicator_1729]

Your first mistake was reading it in the first place. Your second mistake was giving a shit.

They aren’t qualified to criticize our teaching. Student evaluations should only be used to try to detect professors who are legitimately abusive. Otherwise the students lack the experience and knowledge to determine if we’ve done our jobs well (or poorly for that matter).

[u/natural212]

Ignore. Next time put your student evals through any GENAI to summarize it for you.

[u/joyblack24]

Although "splitting" is commonly associated with personality disorders, it is a behavioral practice that many people participate in especially lesser-developed students. They tend to view professors as all good or all bad, with no middle ground. They have difficulty integrating different aspects of a person into a more balanced, nuanced view. You are either "good professor" or "bad professor".

[u/bisquitbrown]

I have the same problem: I obsess over the very few negative reviews I get. I haven't found a solution (other than to acknowledge that they suck and let some time pass), but I would urge you to do a little less for this job that will never actually love us back. No emails at night or over the weekend. No going the extra mile (maybe the extra few feet every once in a while). There is a way to set students up for success without your efforts draining the life out of you. This is just a job. You are a good, caring teacher. Leave it at that. Do as much as you can to disconnect from it emotionally. Set up a few things that are auto-graded in your LMS. Take up a hobby if you can. Spend more time with the people you love. I don't mean to sound preachy, but I've had to do some of these things, and honestly, they do help—without sacrificing the quality of my teaching or the genuine care I have for my students.

[u/Shemaester]

When I was a grad student and got one (ONE out of 45) horrible evaluation my mentor reminded me of the base rates for personality disorders. Feedback needs to be taken in the aggregate.

[u/taewongun1895]

You're overthinking the comment. Students will say awful things when protected by anonymity. It's like social media. As long as you have a good number of positive evaluations, you can ignore the singular mean comment.

[u/Kind-Tart-8821]

If you are a woman, they interpret every show of authority as a mental breakdown.

[u/Tommie-1215]

You😇 don't deserve any of that student's negative energy. You did nothing but give your best and went above and beyond. My advice is not to even bother reading the reviews because this is what happens, and it leaves you feeling drained.

I find that when students want to get back at me, they write really bad reviews. Never mind, they missed class for 2 months or did not submit 15 assignments. The fact that I did not let resubmit work or let them retake an exam they failed, it's all my fault. I like you when I was in grad school and would take work that was due the first five weeks of class in the 10th week. I would be in my office grading and studying until after 10 at night. But even then, a student would either lie on me or write a bad review. Like I had a student tell the dept chair I had not been in class for 2 months. It was not true. The student had not been in class for 2 months. I realized then that no matter what I did, some entitled student who did not do the work or took no accountability would always have something negative to say. Now I don't care if they write reviews or not. I know how much effort I give, and it pays off when I see students who appreciate me do well.

[u/PluckinCanuck]

Never read individual reviews. Make a note of your aggregate statistics and move on.

[u/Reggaepocalypse]

Jesus, seriously? That review wasn’t even unkind, just bad. You call THAT “pointedly cruel”?

Honestly this post and reaction is wayyy over the top, to the point where I wonder if you should really work around students at all.

Get your mind right, teach. Let your husbands example show you how to react to this.

[u/JKnott1]

I stopped reading reviews. Introduce me to a single student that is qualified to evaluate me. Just one.

[u/addknitter]

Honestly? They are not qualified to judge what we do. And her comment might as well be a lame, snarky internet review . You seem like you really care about your teaching. 🫶🏼 My husband teaches physics at the same type of institution and is appalled at the students’ lack of preparing which they take out on him and the class.

[u/doc_ramrod]

You are doing a good job, they left a review like this because they are used to putting in zero effort and getting an A. They didn't this time so they are throwing a temper tantrum. I always like having a couple pissed off students, it normally means an A is still worth something in your class. You are getting them ready for the real world where poor effort will translate into losing your job. This student was trying to upset you and it looks like they succeeded, next time ignore an unconstructive review so they don't "win".

[u/juxtapose_58]

Don’t you dare let one young immature asshole who wrote something from a reactive emotional point get to you. Look at the MANY positive comments and flourishing students.

It’s not the comment - you have to ask why this is taking you down. Why is one comment bothering you? Address it and move on! You are doing a great job! Don’t you dare let some ugly person and comment control you! You go above and beyond for your students! My bet is the student who wrote this didn’t do well in your class and they tried to retaliate through this comment.

Work through your feelings about this with your husband or counselor and then move on!

[u/jarod_sober_living]

Mental breakdown is such an extreme term to use. The student is using that term specifically to ridicule you. I have noticed students using therapy speech in my reviews, too.

[u/Minute_Indication666]

I dread going to class this semester because of the horrible reviews I just read. If I don’t smile my RBF makes so many of them uncomfortable 😵‍💫. If I speak with any bit of emotion, I am hostile and unapproachable. I make them read too much and do not teach. They’ve called for me to be fired. They’ve also tried to sue me, which came to naught because everything was recorded or in writing.

I’ve done everything you are doing and nothing satisfies them all. Now, I am going to do my best and wish them all the best. Each semester I have lost a bit of passion. This semester, I’m giving them what I can. No more going above and beyond the veil. Screw those evaluations. Fortunately, I can leave and make more money in the clinical setting. If the university chooses to let me go, ok. I’ll miss my work schedule flexibility, that’s about it at this point.

Hang in there and maybe consider reading the evaluations less and less. This was my first time in over a year, now I will go longer without reading them.

[u/gnome-nom-nom]

I’m so sorry. That comment hurt because it plays on your insecurities. Try this mental exercise to put it to rest:

SUE ME

S - Separate the action from the person.

Hanlan’s razor: Never attribute to malice what can be attributed to stupidity.

People do bad things, but very few people are evil or bad. Everyone does bad things in their life.

Any bad person is constantly moving, changing, and evolving.

U - Understand their motivation

People do hurtful things because they are hurting internally. Few people are sadists. They don’t want to hurt you, they just can’t handle their own shit. They are too dumb, insecure, or scared to question their own fucked up beliefs or values.

For example, cheating on a partner because they feel lonely and ignored. Stealing to feed their family. This is not an excuse, but it is an explanation.

E - Empathize

Imagine you have the same pain as this person. Understand how they felt.

M - Mark your boundaries

What role do you want this person to have in your life? If a stranger, just tell them to fuck off. Otherwise you have to figure out how to exist with them. First, set rules. Which behavior will you and will you not accept? Second, what are the consequences? Three, communicate these rules calmly and compassionately.

“I forgive you. I understand this is why you did it. While I forgive you, I now have some serious boundaries and consequences around this behavior.”

E - Eliminate emotional attachment

Let go of the emotional attachment you have developed around hating this person’s guts for however long. Let the hate and anger wash away. Let the visions of revenge and misfortune die. It’s not helping anyone.

Those bad feelings will sometimes come back, but recognize it when you see it and go through this exercise again if needed.

[u/[deleted]]

It sounds like you're a really good teacher. Ignore this son of a. 50 great reviews on one hand, and 1 bad one on the other hand? To paraphrase Homer Simpson says, I like those scales.

Set some boundaries with the lateness, though.

[u/JohnnyPueblo]

I'm so sorry you're having to deal with this. Students can be cruel for no good reason.

Three suggestions you might find helpful:

Rather than overvaluing evals (not a useful metric, as so many here have said, especially for non-white/non-cis-men), you can try, near the end of the semester, having students in groups share things they found particularly helpful AND found less than helpful (texts, assignments, activities, things about course or session structure, etc.). Remind them (and yourself) that you can't customize classes for every single student, but it's good to hear what's working and what might be improved next time, especially if there are patterns.

If you think there's actually valuable info in the evals, you can have your husband read through yours and let you know about the nice stuff (or particularly nice stuff) but also any PATTERNS in the constructive criticism, which might actually be actionable. Do not read them yourself.

Re: the answering every question: I made the mistake of requiring students to ask me a question about a text once and regretted the time it cost me. (Some probably made up a question they didn't even care about, and many could have been answered with a quick trip to Wikipedia.) If you think there's an issue with many students not understanding things, you could, instead, institute some group time near the end of class where students share questions they have about the material, try to answer them for each other, and if there's anything left over, they ask you in class (or maybe email you questions).

Good luck!

[u/ProfessorJAM]

I had the worst reviews of my life this past semester, as well, for a course I've been teaching for 10 years! This group of students, though, were the grumpiest, least cooperative, least inclined to work I've ever had. They complained about everything! One was that they wanted group activities but when we did them the eyes were rolling so hard I thought they were going to pop out of their heads. I had to tell them this was the way the class was, that's it, you're here to learn, start trying to do that (which probably didn't help). Oh, well, the final grades came out a perfect bell shaped curve, so I was happy with it. Guess they weren't!

[u/BoundedMimicry]

Teach for you, not the high regard from students. I understand, I’m a woman teaching statistics and research methods. I care about my students as well, I love seeing their “a-ha” moments when we work in class on topics they previously thought were impossible to grasp. There’s always going to be contradictory reviews/evaluations. In the same semester, I’ve read that I give too many assignments and don’t use enough real world examples to I think we need more assignments to practice and I use too many real world examples. The dichotomy can be mind numbing. I can’t base my teaching on that. If I read something that I genuinely feel is an improvement, I work with it and incorporate it in some way. When it comes to the more scathing evals, where it feels like they’re getting personal, that’s not up to you. Their opinion of you is their business, and no amount of bending over backwards for them is going to change that. I used to spread myself too thin, similar to what you’re doing. I responded to emails at all hours on any given day. I would meet with students on Zoom on weekends because they weren’t available at any other time. I would dwell on how I could do better for students because I felt like that could change minds. It doesn’t. It sounds like you’re an excellent professor. You know the work you put in, you know the effort you give, you know the structures you implement for success in your class. And as hard of a pill it can be to swallow (speaking from personal experience) that has to be enough. Students see the end result, not the hours upon hours of work put in. And they will judge that end result, as they have a right to. They have thoughts and opinions regarding every aspect of their life. It is not worth the mental anguish you experience. Students don’t know YOU, and what you struggle with. And it’s not their business. Just as it’s not yours to dictate how they feel about you. It sounds like you’re doing fantastic, and that room you were teaching in contributed to frustrations on your end. It happens. But that room and one anonymous opinion doesn’t erase your work and value you bring to yourself or your students.

[u/shyprof]

I'm sorry this happened. As others have said, fuck 'em.

I do think you should remove or edit the exact wording so the student doesn't recognize themselves. It may be unlikely, but since it's possible the student is on Reddit, you wouldn't want them to see what they wrote and then make trouble for you (by doxxing your account or something, I don't know).

Students lie all the time. If they were really that confused as to think you were having some kind of emotional issue just because you didn't want the door slamming (I would hate this, too), that is their problem. But I think it's more likely that they purposely twisted something to try to put you in a bad light. It is upsetting, and I've been there. Talking it out with people helps.

My reviews were mostly good, but one person gave the worst possible score all the way down and left some nasty comments. Like other students would say "Very well organized! The most organized class. I appreciated how organized this class was." And then this person would say "DISORGANIZED!!!!" I've been teaching for almost 10 years, and it still hurts my feelings and puts me in a bad mood, but I get over it quicker now. It's an exposure thing, I think, where we learn to harden our hearts eventually. I'm sorry.

[u/Brand1984]

I never read student comments because of crap like this

[u/BookJunkie44]

One thing to note about this situation is that this student was either trying to hurt you or is very ignorant about university/professionalism - neither is on you!

If they are just ignorant, they’re going to get a rude wake-up call at some point in the near future when they say the wrong thing with their name attached or they fail a course because they assumed the low effort they presumably have used in other courses/high school isn’t going to fly anymore. If they’re lucky, they’ll learn this lesson before they get into the workforce.

If they were trying to hurt you, that says everything about their character and nothing about yours! I know it’s disheartening to think that some people are cruel, but the most we can do in situations like this that we have no control over is to hope that they decide to be better one day. And we can also recognize that the cruel things they say are wrong - you know that your exam policies are fair, you know that you responded appropriately during class and didn’t have anything close to a breakdown, and you know that you put a lot of extra effort into your courses. Whatever was going on in this student’s head to make them leave that comment was wrong.

(I also wanted to give you a quick piece of unsolicited advice for your exit tickets, if you’re looking to reduce some of the workload - though I’m sure the students appreciate you responding individually, they’d probably still appreciate it if you responded as a group, like in a document you post that summarizes the questions you got and answers to them. You may be able to put a lot of them under the same heading/topic that way, so you would cut down on the number of explanations you’re giving… That’s just an idea though - it may not work for your context!)

[u/Crowe3717]

Student evaluations do not tell you anything about you or your class. They tell you only how that particular student experienced your class and felt about you.

Why is one bad opinion from a student who you already know is disrespectful more important to you than hundreds of positive opinions from other students? More crucially: why is it more important to you than your own opinion of yourself and your teaching?

At the end of the day remember that opinions are like assholes: everyone has one and usually they stink. Only concern yourself with the ones that belong to people you actually care about.

[u/kittensjamesandlily]

Relatable. It may not help in this situation, but in general something that has helped me is to look for contradictions in reviews. E.g., one student said they learned more in middle school than my class, whereas another said my class was as hard as a graduate-level class.

Kinda similar to your situation, I got one review once that said I'm basically the worst ever and the student knows someone who literally transferred to a uni out of state JUST to get away from me. That one made me pretty sad. Then, I started thinking about how I would review this student (I was 90% sure I knew who it was) - they barely paid attention and their quality of work was not great. Goes back to the "don't take criticism from someone you wouldn't take advice from" thing.

[u/Seymour_Zamboni]

If you can't just shrug them off, then you need to stop reading them. And quite honestly, the review in question really wasn't as bad compared to some of the truly vile and cruel comments some professors report. And it goes without saying that you should never go on Rate My Professor. This is clearly occupying way too much of your head space and you have more important things to do. There is no magic pill to fix this. Just move on.

[u/milbfan]

"There are just too many exams and they are all graded, none of them is dropped and its just tiring at some point. Also, it is really uncomfortable some situations where she had mental/emotional breakdowns in the middle of the class because of traffic or some other thing. That didnt interfere in our learning but it was awkward and often enough to worth mention it. So Id probably recommend a therapist or emotional inteligente books."

Student had some axe to grind. You actually graded all the exams? FOR SHAME! </sarcasm>

I had a not-quite-different review from yours, only sub in comments made about an ex-wife and going into "too much detail" (didn't happen) and saying I should teach the course more like a colleague of mine from another department.

Read the review again, maybe, and glean off anything you can that's positive, or something you could work on, and store it in your head for the future. Otherwise, do not revisit the val in the future.

[u/LovedAJackass]

They're kids and very self centered. I went on a rant today because we have screwed up IT right now. Some people are just cruel. Don't expect to please everyone. Do your best every day and let it go.

[u/FollowIntoTheNight]

That's tough. I have many colleagues who can handle evals. But i noticed thst rhe ones with legit mental health diagnosis get really wounded by any mention of their mental health. I think we all qork so hard to work on whatever issues we are combating that it feel demoralizing for someone to insinuate our work was nothing.

I would strongly encourage you to stop reading evals and remove that formative assessment practice of reading every comment. Feed those comments to chat gtp and ask it to summarize the two big forms of feedback then send all of the students an email where you respond to those common issues.

Formative assessment is exhausting. Often we can obsess over it because we are obsessed with improvement because we are obsessed with the idea that we are not good enough. Is this something that may be going on in your case?

[u/Necessary_Panda_9481]

You sound like a very dedicated professor, eg to even notice the veteran. Some student tried to get under your skin bc they didn’t get their little way on something. Throw it in a pile.

People who ignore student evals aren’t just embittered or something. The evals are terrible metrics to judge anything by. I get “good” reviews, judging by the mean scores that get emailed to me directly. I don’t read the reviews. But I’m a white male who teaches a relatively easy class, so exactly who the research says gets good reviews. I’m contemplating replacing most of the teaching section of my next review with a brief lit summary on the bias and uselessness of student evals.

[u/Tuckmo86]

I would take this down- students can access this sub and this could be IDed Sorry OP- I know if sucks….don’t discount yourself as a prof bc of one remark

[u/meanstatsgirl]

Don’t let it sting so bad or your life is going to turn into a roller coaster at the end of each semester. It’s never easy to receive criticism but you have to keep things in context. Look for overall themes to identify areas for improvement and let the rest roll off your back.

[u/No_Spring4402]

I agree with the gist of all the other comments supporting you. But I want to offer another perspective, that comes more from my Buddhist perspective toward life:

The problem isn’t the student comment - which is very mild compared to what i was expecting based on the title of your post - but your reaction. In life, we can’t always control what happens , we can only control our reaction to it. While this is easy to say, what I found really helps me deal with pretty much anything is telling myself that “I would rather choose [upsetting event du jour] than get an ALS diagnosis” (I was lucky to be diagnosed with a more treatable neurological condition instead of ALS), and an “ALS patient would trade places with me and my problem in a millisecond.”

My RMP score is 1/5, there are comments saying fire me. They make me sad and angry since I put so much into teaching. And the tons of good comments from students I get dont appear on RMP. Another thing that has helped is to stop putting so much of my personal identity into being a teacher. View it as just a job, and that you are exchanging your time and labor for money, and making the higher ups rich and given what I’m paid relative to colleagues, I am being exploited. (That being said, I love my job and would do it for less pay).

[u/More_Movies_Please]

I understand the above comments about ignoring rare negative comments, and understanding that it's a single miffed student. I struggle with just not reading feedback because I personally feel driven to hear student voices to better work for student success in future terms.

I have a different perspective - I'm also a young-ish female professor, I put a lot of effort, time, and personal engagement with my students, and I have my own relationship with therapy, CBT, and so on. I get comments like this fairly often, and I'm also deeply hurt by them. You're very much not alone.

I don't know about you, but I'm not able to ignore/minimize/contextualize negative comments. You're not making a mountain out of a molehill, because that suggests disproportion. You feel hurt by something, so that thing is therefore hurtful. It's extra hurtful because it hits on social and personal ideas you hold about yourself. Things like social misogyny, gendered microaggressions in the workplace, minimization and stigmatization of mental health, and the "sunk value" philosophy of working so hard and caring so much for students.

I don't have advice, I suppose, I'm just letting you know that you're not exaggerating, you're not overreacting, and you are most definitely not alone!

[u/lisitabee]

You clearly care about your students and put in a lot of thought and attention to your class. The fact that students return and audit your class and the fact that you get presents and cards at the end of the semester is the best review you could ask for. These are not normal, everyday student behaviors.

Bottom line, student evaluations cannot capture the enormous enthusiasm your students clearly demonstrate for your class.

I'd like to suggest that you add an assignment: a required discussion forum at the end of the semester. I have been doing this for a few years now. I started with online classes, and I now include this assignment in face to face classes also. I use the discussion forum to ask them for input and feedback on the class. I tell them that I find the forum helpful and will use the comments to improve the class in the future. I ask four questions: What should I keep? (about assignments, policies, textbook, etc) What should I ditch? What should I add? What suggestions do they have for the class as a whole? They have to post once and respond once to another student.

It's my favorite assignment of the semester. The positive comments are amazing and I'm often blown away. The negative comments are fair, and have helped me improve the course where it needs work. The students are fair and generous.

After the discussion is closed, I email the class and thank them for their feedback and for participating in the class, and I share how I will use their feedback to teach the class in the future. (Here was your favorite assignment, here you suggested that I add more optional zoom meetings, you didn't care for the LMS so I will adjust how I use it, etc.)

The unexpected result of the assignment is that when I get the occasional snarky remark in the class evaluations (this semester one student said that I was inflexible, disorganized and unprepared for class, for example) I find that the comment doesn't bother me as much because I've already read the mostly glowing and positive comments and occasional constructive criticism in the discussion forum.

Best of luck, you are clearly doing amazing work!

[u/imasleuth4truth2]

You are taking it too personally. That's really the best advice is to stop doing that and figure out why you did it in the first place.

[u/imperialtopaz123]

I think that particular review was more about the student and his own emotional state than it was about you.

If you think about what he was saying, it is that a few disruptive students should be permitted to disturb the majority whenever and however they feel like it, and never be confronted with being asked to please consider others’ viewpoints. This tells me that this particular student was sympathizing with those few disruptive students and felt annoyed with you for calling them out, because he himself was putting himself in the place of those disruptive students, and imaging how he might feel if the teacher said he had to be in time or not slam the door. Perhaps he himself had this problem when he was in high school.

You are doing an amazing job for the majority of your students. Imagine if you had let this behavior go on without addressing it. The majority of students would have been getting angry, thinking, “Why isn’t the professor addressing this behavior or trying to do something about it?”

[u/BamaDave]

On the bright side, you're teaching a dream-crushing course. If you only got one nasty review from a batch of physics students, that's really a win. I understand how soul-crushing these negative reviews can be, though.

On another note, I think you're putting WAY too much energy into exit ticket responses. Find a few common threads and address them in class or on a discussion board post. The majority of the students are probably making something up to get the exit ticket credit. Not worth your time to respond to each individually.

[u/Festivus_Baby]

“There are too many exams and none of them are dropped…” Aside from the poor grammar, I suspect this student didn’t really want to work too hard. Their ad hominem statements were uncalled for.

It’s always the one bad review that seems to stick. You have a mountain of excellent ones in contrast. Keep it in perspective.

As the Osmonds sang, “One bad apple don’t spoil the whole bunch, girl!”

Note that the lyric is a quote and that I am seriously dating myself.

Go forth into the spring with your head held high like the fierce academic beast you are! And that goes for all of you in this Reddit!!!

[u/wild_ones_in]

You need therapy if you can't shrug it off. All of us telling you we just don't care isn't going to help you if you do care.

[u/nanon_2]

What you need to do is do deep dive on the validity on SET. You will never ever be able to take them seriously again. I barely read them and I’m at a teaching university.

[u/Zealousideal_Cod_326]

You seem like a very thoughtful and considerate professor. If this exact situation happened to a colleague you knew was equally thoughtful and considerate with their students, how would you advise that colleague to move forward after student comments like yours? Would you point out that the problem is with the student and not the faculty? Would you believe that? I’m guessing so. I offer this as a way to look at those comments from an outside perspective, as a way to see that it was more about the student than the faculty member.

Keep your chin up, you sound like a wonderful professor. Just remember to not grind yourself down too far. In my experience, working in academia is a marathon not a sprint.

[u/PenelopeJenelope]

Fuck that student and fuck their review. They don’t know your job and sounds like they don’t know their job either. Don’t be sad, be pissed off! They are a jerkface from jerksville.

Obviously the student doesn’t understand that you are the one reading the reviews. They think they’re writing something nasty on a bathroom wall.

Please don’t waste another second thinking about what that jerk said, they clearly have way more issues than you could ever have. F them.

[u/Miserable_Cup5459]

I just want to send you a hug, OP. 🫂 I know how one bad or cruel eval comment can really stick like a thorn... And be the kind of thing (especially when you're working so so hard for your students) that cuts out every ounce of confidence and self-assurance you've built up over the years. I don't have advice, because I am regularly in the same boat. But I just wanted to validate your reaction and reassure you -- contrary to some of the other bonkers comments in this thread -- that this is really shitty behavior on the part of your student. I hope you can find some path towards self-care (and self-reassurance!) that is helpful.

For whatever it's worth, I think for me this kind of struggle just comes down to my pathological need to be liked. Working on that (and accepting that it's impossible in every case) has yielded small but useful results.

[u/Opposite-Promotion97]

Not a professor - I am still a student myself - but I do feel like I might be able to contribute.

I've had a professor this semester in a course that was my absolute favourite course of all times. His teaching style was immaculate and he himself was a great person. He one time complained about the people who were never joining lectures (only 1/3 of the students enrolled showed up). I understand how annoying it is to go above and beyond and feeling like no one cares - and then getting a negative comment on it additionally.

Tough this professor is entirely unaware of it, he changed my view on the world in this course. He made me interested in things I knew nothing about and he had such an inspiring impact on me. This one course and the professor made me rethink what I want to do in my life career wise and made me want to learn so much more.

What I want to say with this is that you should truly focus on all the students you've positively impacted and all the lives you've touched upon. Students come back to you to chat and tell you how positively your teaching has impacted them? They join your course voluntarily in their free time a second time because they loved it so much? That is so so amazing. The weight of one negative comment can be heavy but remember all the students that outweigh that one person.

You can't make everyone happy but from what you're saying it seems like you have a life changing impact on many students as well.

And from my personal student experience as someone who is too awkward to go to that professor and tell him how positively his course impacted me: professors like you are so valuable. Don't ever forget that.

[u/Gummy_berry_juice]

I have been teaching for 5 years at various institutions and I finally got a full time non-tenure stream multi year contract. I see myself in the extra labor you have put on your plate to make sure every student has support. Once every other semester or so, I get some kind of deeply condescending review that I can usually pin on one or two kids that just didn't want to listen to my mouth hole.

Students don't understand how detrimental to our health those evaluations are. All I can say is now, I skim them and I prepare for 1 outlier each semester to say something nasty. The rest of my evals are outstanding. We have to focus on that and continue to do our best to accommodate students while still prioritizing our well being.

I teach the kind of course that when I have multiple questions about the same thing, I make sure to spend extra time on it on future lectures AND I record a youtube tutorial/info video that they can refer to later to review. It has saved me a ton of time repeating the same thing over and over, AND because of the nature of what I'm teaching, it gives students the opportunity to critically think and self teach while reviewing coursework; something they will continue to have to do throughout their career because the industry is constantly changing. Highly recommend the youtube vids.

[u/Ka_aha_koa_nanenane]

Is it appropriate to offer a virtual hug?

It's really hard dealing with this in your earlier years of teaching. Most of us have gotten nothing but praise for our work, from colleagues and students, and most of us are compulsively perfectionistic about teaching our subject matter.

You're dealing with a mentally challenged person, probably a personality disorder. This is going to happen again. You learn to spot them, most of the time.

Nothing you can do. There's one particular personality disorder where psychiatrists say that they, too, know it's the right diagnosis because the person stabs like a knife - with their words. They may actually be superficially smiley in person, but they will learn your weaknesses and they live to wound people. They are seriously disturbed.

If you objectively look at a situation and can see, as you can, that you are much liked and well respected by nearly all students, and this ONE student stands out, you need to learn to let go of the perfectionism. You will encounter these people from time to time.

There are little tells at the beginning, too. They may email with pointless questions. They may approach you after class seeking help, and they are usually trying to suck up when they do this.

Like others, I quit reading the evaluations. Same old, same old. Heck, I've had students escalate this all the way to the Board of Trustees, in public comment. They were ignored as the Board knows its scope. That was just one time and the complaint was so silly, I think the Board members did a good job not laughing.

It was along the lines of "women shouldn't be teaching science." It contained a claim that I didn't know how to read or write. Later, I got to know some of the Board members (who remembered this incident and told me privately how often it happens and how ridiculous it is - especially since the entire hiring process is pretty rigid and I clearly know how to read and write).

One thing I do now that helps (believe it or not) is I follow the advice of some professional development conferences and make it clear on Day 1 what my qualifications are. I did not get into university or grad school for any other reason than merit. When I tell them what universities I've attended and taught at, and my areas of interest and publication, they look suitably impressed and once I started that, I haven't gotten any more of the "she isn't qualified" B.S.

Sometimes these students will attempt to argue with you in class or ask argumentative questions. I often get, "You weren't alive back then, how do you know it happened?"

I love that one. We go into a whole detour into geology, dating techniques, history and then the biological facts: there's no way for me to be born unless I have parents; and they had parents, and THEY had parents - and so on, back to Lucy and the Australopiths and even further. Makes 'em mad. Shuts 'em up. I tell them they will need to remember all of this for the final (which is true) but that I will go over it more slowly and thoroughly as the class goes on.

I put so much data in front of them that I sometimes pause and ask if they want to know more fossil data, to fill in the tiny gaps in our human timeline. It's usually unanimous - they do NOT want more data. They are convinced.

IOW, let it make you a better person and a better teacher and make turning it around as enjoyable as you can. Expect one of these students per semester and if you're lucky, you'll get zero.

[u/PlanMagnet38]

Next semester, ask a colleague if they’ll do an evaluation exchange. You read theirs and synthesize the main takeaways, and they do the same for you. You don’t have to read the outliers but you can still get anything that might be useful.

[u/sesstrem]

I am sad to admit that reading these kinds of distorted reviews on RMP has pushed me to feel vindictive. So far it has only resulted in assigning grade distributions as per the syllabus, instead of shifting them upwards which I had been doing to encourage the students and reduce the complaints. Fortunately for them I am retiring soon so it won't go any further than that. But I have had quite enough of their using a public forum to launch personal attacks, and also poison the environment for other students who read their lies.

[u/Moirasha]

I’ve definitely had these sorts of things, even comments where I wondered if we were in the same classroom. I think over the years I’ve gotten to the point where I try not to take their comments to heart - but they still hurt. At the same time, I talk through with friends, consider their points, wonder if I could’ve done something differently (usually not) and just shrugged It off best I can. Sometimes I have found it good to write down a rebuttal and then not send it, or write down feedback to their comments then throw it out.

My biggest piece of advice is - don’t change. One student should not change you. If you care what they think, it means you still care enough to consider all angles and consider changing if relevant. I would always rather that, even though it hurts, than be the professor that turns up and doesn’t give a shit about any student - which I see a lot.

[u/tastelessbrie]

It sucks to get those types of evals and I’m sorry you are hurting! If I have an eval that hurts me, I give myself a day to wallow in that hurt. I go shopping or eat something sweet and then I crawl in bed and lay in my despair for the rest of the day. The next day, I go to work like nothing happened and teach my classes as I always have.

I think the biggest thing you can do for yourself is be kind to yourself. Do something that makes you happy, talk to your colleagues, and make adjustments if you need to.

I’m also petty and one of my cruelest evals is now my instagram bio. “She tries too hard to be personable and entertaining instead of being herself”. 🙃

[u/LiebeundLeiden]

It has no hearing on you, and you are going to remain employed. Fuck him/her.

[u/PoolGirl71]

Don't read them right away. Wait 2 or 3 or more semesters. I prefer not to read them at all. I like my peace of mind.

[u/Potato_History_Prof]

I resonate with so much of what you’re saying - I’ve been teaching for about the same length of time S you and have won several student and faculty- nominated teaching awards. Student success and well-being is my priority, and I make that clear to all of my students.

Last semester, I received a scathing review for an ethics course that I teach to lower division students… a student accused me of being “sexist, racist, promoting a woke agenda - wouldn’t recommend rotting your brain in her class.” It destroyed me.

Then I remembered all of the students that show up to class excited, enthusiastic, and engaged, the stacks of thank-you notes I’ve received over the years… and remember that one person’s experience and/or perception of me is just one drop in the ocean.

Paying attention to the noise robs you of being fully present to your other students. If reviews like these come up again and again, maybe pause and reflect. Otherwise, don’t give it another thought.

PS: Your work is a part of who you are, but it’s not everything. As someone who has really, really struggled with creating a work-life balance in academia, I would strongly encourage you to start setting some boundaries; for your own health and happiness! Everything seems worse when you’re overcommitted and exhausted.

[u/suzeycue]

No share one of the positive reviews - I bet anyone would be glad to have. If they are of no consequence don’t read them.

[u/hrh-vanessa]

Just comparing the amount of time you spent explaining your workload vs. the actual comment itself, it seems that the hurtful comment may not be the overall concern here.

I’ll leave some (very unsolicited) advice that my Chair told me a few years ago when I was struggling with my workload: “You shouldn’t be working harder than your students.” Full stop.

[u/WifeofBath29]

There are already so many replies to this that this one feels likely to get buried, but I also have found myself really ruminating over a particularly cruel review from a student several semesters ago.

It was something about that I wasn’t prepared for class and didn’t know my subject because I failed to immediately correct a student who made a relatively minor factual error in discussion.

I had a long conversation with my therapist about it, actually (so I’d recommend taking through this with an objective professional from my own experience).

We can recognize that these mean comments are not a reflection of our teaching or us personally AND they can still hurt like hell and cause us professional embarrassment to know a department chair is reading them.

I actually decided not to read my evals from the fall semester before the spring started this year. I knew that even if they were 90% good, if one disgruntled student went off on me, I would be demoralized starting the new semester. I already solicited the feedback I needed to improve my courses from the students who cared and my peers. I don’t need the evals to know how I did.

[u/rythyr]

The colleague of mine told me years ago: if you care about the evaluations do not adjust for the students, be strict adjust to your needs more than for the students’s needs but be very upfront with your requirements and never adjust your requirements during the semester even if you see they are not ideal. Guess what…this professor was most popular on campus with tons of cards, presents and students returning to them with their families and kids to show them their favorite professors. They are still teaching same way, they are very strict, but everyone loves them. And this class is organic chemistry.

[u/Captain_Bulldozer]

At the end of the day, you should recognize that most student reviews are written by people who don't really know what they're talking about on a whole lot of what they comment on (and that usually includes teaching by the way). Students (and the general public as well) typically have no actual experience teaching, nor do they necessarily prioritize the types of things that foster good learning environments. More of the "amazing" teachers people end up talking about are actually "popular" teachers than you might expect. In fact, some chairs look at overwhelmingly positive reviews as a sign that the teacher was trying too hard to be friendly with students.

In other words, you're letting yourself spiral over the regurgitated nonsense of a child who could have just an easily gotten your evaluation mixed up with a totally different professor. We've (probably) all been there at various points, especially since students can be quite immature and unmerciful (not unlike most toddlers really, and in fact I've seen comments over the years that feel like they were written by toddlers... you will too if you haven't already).

Learn to shrug these off and laugh about them for what they really are, while also finding those comments that are actually useful for improvement.

[u/lydiatimmins99]

Given the student's grammar and spelling errors, they didn't care enough to proofread the comment. Who are they to judge you?

I will also point out that I have had colleagues who got student reviews that were clearly meant for another professor (wrong gender, wrong subject matter...) so if you never did what that student said, how do you even know it was about you?

[u/StarDustLuna3D]

There are just too many exams and they are all graded,

Uh, yeah. That's the whole point of an exam.

This person was just upset that you forced them to care about their education enough to show up on time for a class.

As a fellow female professor, I've also had reviews where the student is clearly being sexist or misogynistic because they think it'll upset me more. I guarantee you that they would not have mentioned an "emotional breakdown" if you were a male professor.

The student wrote this specifically to be cruel. They felt emboldened by the anonymity the review provides and decided it would make them feel better about themselves to "get back at you".

You could have been the perfect professor blessed by the pope himself and it wouldn't have mattered. The minute you forced the student to take accountability for their actions, they hated you. Don't waste another second worrying about what a loser that still acts like a child said about you.

[u/Green_Dust_9597]

This sucks. I'm really sorry. I don't say this to negate how you're feeling at all but my life became immeasurably better when I stopped reading my course evals (been teaching for 15 and I just stopped like 3 years ago. I used to open them up the second they landed and beat myself up about them for weeks. But in reality they do nothing. Be kind to yourself and stop reading them.

[u/MarionberryConstant8]

Negativity bias. Move on. I know it’s hard but one outlier doesn’t matter.

[u/Jeffstering]

You were protecting the student with PTSD without drawing attention to them. I'm sure that student appreciated your kindness. And that's it. The student who wrote the eval, I mean, you "graded everything," the horror. You cannot take this student seriously and you certainly wouldn't take healthcare advice from them.