Your $79.75 helps you dodge bad professors and save cash on textbooks.

With less than a month to go in the fall semester, UB students are being forced to look ahead to the spring. Many students have already registered for their spring classes. The majority of students will register this week.

Many factors go into choosing a class. For newer students, they have general education and pre-requisite classes that have to be fulfilled. But no matter what class a student chooses, no single person is more influential than the professor that teaches the course.

Wouldn’t it be nice if there was a way to see just how good the teacher is before you take the class? Why risk it, when you can check out the Student Association’s online teacher evaluations, located on the Student Association (SA) website (www.sa.buffalo.edu).

At the end of each semester, students, whether happy, sad, angry, or indifferent (from never going to class), fill out teacher evaluations forms, which constitute the data on the website. The site currently has information on nearly all of the “named” teachers (you cannot rank the graduate student who volunteers to teach your recitation) in the College of Arts and Sciences (CAS), the School of Engineering, and the School of Management. SA is currently working on obtaining teacher evaluations for instructors in other UB schools, but for the new undergraduate student, it is highly unlikely that the teacher they are looking for is not ranked.

The official “rules” for teacher rankings vary depending on which school the teacher works in. In the CAS, current data is gathered from the previous fall and spring semesters. Students in those classes during those times filled out a survey, using a five point scale to answer questions about the course and the teacher. One is “strongly disagree,” and five is “strongly agree.” In the CAS as well as the School of Engineering, the data given on the website pertains to two rankings: “I would recommend this course to other students,” and “I would recommend this instructor to other students.”

Data is omitted if the class response is under 40 percent, or if fewer than five students are enrolled in a class.

Students seeking management courses are given much more information from the surveys. Questions pertaining to aspects such as the overall difficulty of the course, and the amount of work time required for obtaining a good grade are listed for each professor and course. It even answers the question “How much did you feel you have learned in this course?”

Students love the teacher rankings, as well as many teachers. Geology Professor Gregory Baker, who received an average 4.67 recommendation from Geology 101 students says, “I think it’s a great program.” Many first year students are eager to try the website for the first time, using the information to help them register for classes later this week.

Now that you have registered for your courses, and you have an idea of what to expect from the professors, you need books. Books have always been a burden for college students. They can be very expensive, as much as $150 for one book, and many are only used for one semester. To help alleviate this problem, SA runs another website, the online book exchange.

The book exchange is run by third parties. This means that students who have used books post messages on the website. They are asked to submit the book’s title, edition, and year of publication. Books are organized on the database by department and course.

Sellers name an asking price for the book. This is beneficial to students who have used books, because if one can manage to sell their used book for over 50 percent of the retail price, they will make more money than the campus bookstore’s highest buying price for used books.

One offer on the book exchange contains a required chemistry textbook for Chemistry 102 with a retail price of $147, being sold for $75. Even better, the book exchange offers more than books. With $85 you can buy that same chem book with a study guide and lecture notes.

However, it is very important to be careful while purchasing used books through the book exchange. SA warns that “the Student Association does not endorse and is not responsible for any seller’s claim.” Remember this when reading the description of the books’ conditions, which, as chances have it, will never contain the words “poor,” “bad,” or even “fair.” “Any arrangement and/or sale is between the seller and the buyer,” says the site on its disclaimer.

It is your student fee that provides the money to keep these websites up and running, and they continue to be useful tools to students each semester. Bad teachers and expensive textbooks are an inevitable part of a college education, and SA does its part to alleviate some of the student body’s burden through its online services