Fun with course evaluations (Spring 2003):

From the algebraic number theory class that I hated (describing the professor):

"He copied the book word for word onto the blackboard. It made it easy to follow along, but didn't contribute much to extra understanding or insight. "

"Boring as all hell. Had this wierd, sort of patronizing thing where he'd ask one student if he understood something all the time."

Interestingly enough, two people listed "followed the book" as a good thing about the class. To me, there's following the book and there's copying the book on the blackboard. And copying the book on the blackboard is WRONG. We can read. By the way, I'm pretty sure I wasn't in class on the day that we did evaluations, so I didn't write either of these two (very accurate) reviews, though the boring as all hell part does sound like me.

From ODE:
"He clearly didnt want to be here. Spoke directly out of the on-line notes and was still confusing. Not to mention hes boring and vaguely hostile."

"Confusing, unenthused, unreliable, always late to class, even late to the midterm"

Surprisingly, nine people recommended this professor. This was the class that the professor didn't copy enough midterms for because so many people skipped the class in the weeks leading up to the test that he assumed that there were far fewer people still enrolled. So it's possible that these course evaluations were not an accurate sample. Or maybe I'm too picky about professors, because I thought this was the worst math class I'd taken at the time.