Another semester down, and everyone has gone home for some much needed R&R. Now is the time to reflect on the past four months and decide if any changes need to be made to your current NC State plans. However, as we look ahead and consider potential future classes to satisfy requirements, we often overlook an extremely important factor in class quality: teacher competence.

We are too busy weighing other, much more obvious, aspects of a course such as difficulty of material, quantity of material and necessity to our current major or minor plans to think about whether or not the instructor is actually fit for the job. Most of us do wonder if the professor is “tough” or “boring,” but that’s usually the extent of our worries.

Unfortunately, plenty of professors are prone to not-so-professional habits such as lack of passion for teaching and difficulty working with students, among other issues. The problem with this, however, is that college students oftentimes don’t voice their serious complaints and decide to just keep their head down and get through the class.

While this is definitely understandable, because the last thing students need is to incur the wrath of the professor, it is important for the student body that we don’t just stand idly by and allow subpar instructors to continue to negatively affect our university. We, as students, need to be aware of how the negative qualities of instructors can be detrimental to NC State, and be active in voicing our criticisms.

One such negative quality that I have seen among a few of my instructors so far in my three semesters here is lack of feedback communication. Now I understand that this is not high school — instructors are being paid to teach the course, and there will obviously be concepts that many students will struggle with, after all, that’s what college is infamous for.

However, I have personally witnessed several of my instructors ignore the fact that the class is struggling with a concept that is important to the material. Furthermore, I have had several professors struggle to properly give students back their grades on time. I have seen gaps of whole months between taking a test and receiving the grade.

Another, even more serious, issue is explicit unprofessionalism. This includes improper or problematic conduct, failing to properly communicate important information to students, or an obvious unfamiliarity with the subject material. These issues can lead to a toxic learning environment that students begin to dread attending. Furthermore, this can leave students unable to understand the important information, which can be a massive problem in later courses.

There are several actions that can be taken if you find a serious issue with an instructor. The most obvious one is ClassEval. Here, you can grade your professors and leave comments on major issues with the instructor or course. You can also rest assured that any opinions or information disclosed will remain confidential.

Another potential course of action that can be taken when dealing with an unsatisfactory faculty member is to speak with an Ombuds member. Ombuds is an independent third party trained in mediating in common university conflicts, such as issues with professors. They could serve as invaluable sources of advice and support when a professor is not performing their duties adequately.

Also, for those that want to see the criticisms of their current or future instructors, or contribute their own, I would highly recommend www.ratemyprofessor.com. Here, you can search for your professors and find the average ratings given to both the instructor and to the course, along with individual reviews of the class. Unfortunately, not all professors have reviews on the website, so you might have to go in blind for a few courses.

A bad professor, at first, might just seem like a small part of the overall makeup of a class, but that can quickly change over the course of the semester, as an inadequate instructor can truly make a class a living nightmare. The student body should not allow this kind of misconduct to mark our university, and should speak up when needed.