There is a website called “SNUEV” (www.snuev.com) where you can find course reviews from SNU students. Since it was created in 2008 by a handful of students from the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, SNUEV has accumulated approximately 70,000 course reviews on more than 26,000 courses on campus. Currently, there are 27,691 members, all of whom are SNU students. This means SNUEV is by far the most popular, influential online community you want to visit when looking for students’ opinions on a course.
What makes SNUEV so popular? To start with, SNUEV is famous for its simple, well-designed interface. This has been possible because SNUEV only deals with course reviews and nothing else. SNU Life, the main online community for SNU students, has a bulletin board where students can share comments on courses, but it does not offer any formats people can refer to. In contrast, SNUEV designates a page to every single class, where students who took the course leave their comments. You can search a course either by its title or the lecturer’s name. Furthermore, you are asked to give three star ratings based on general quality, difficulty, and fairness of evaluation as well. All the rating results are combined and displayed along with the comments. Basically, SNUEV is something similar to “IMDb,” the famous movie review website, but specializing in courses instead of movies.
However, the most powerful appeal SNUEV holds for SNU students is that it guarantees anonymity. Although you are required to verify that you are an SNU student upon joining the website, your identity does not appear anywhere. “I feel like I can be much more honest especially when there is something I want to criticize about a course. The fact that SNUEV is run by a group of students with no official ties to school helps too. Moreover, it is a lot easier to talk about the difficulty level of certain courses, because I don’t have to worry about how I will look when I say a course was too hard or too easy,” said JEONG (22, Economics).
Over the years, SNUEV has become the main tool essential for the majority of SNU students when deciding their course schedules. Many students have found that reviews on SNUEV are forthright and helpful. For example, “This course has a lot of work to do, but you’ll find it much easier if you just focus on the textbooks”, “What a wonderful class! The professor is very engaging, and everyone learned a lot this semester. Highly recommend!”, “Team projects result decides the final grade. Work hard!”, and “Take as many notes as possible in class! Lecture notes are everything!” Some can be a bit harsh: “The most boring professor in the world!”, “Total waste of time”, “I got an A, but I don’t even know how,” etc.
According to Duhee LEE, one of the founders of SNUEV and a Ph.D. student in computer science, SNUEV was created to offer every SNU student opportunities to find good courses. “Back then, students were asked to fill out course evaluations at the end of semesters, but the results weren’t made public. Therefore, the only way to get some background information about courses was to meet good upperclassmen, which was neither easy nor fair. I believe SNUEV has been very beneficial to many people.”
LEE also stressed that SNUEV is mostly run by students, saying, “It is true my friends and I first came up with the website, but SNUEV as it is now could not have been possible without many SNU students sharing their thoughts on courses. And the most impressive part is that they are doing it voluntarily, for other classmates.” When SNUEV was created, many other schools such as Soongsil University and Korea University contacted LEE and his friends, wanting to create their own. In fact, most universities’ student-run course evaluation websites have followed the SNUEV model. “We take pride in that we helped SNU first pave the way of establishing a voluntary online community where students can share their views,” said LEE.
SNUEV is not without some shortcomings though. It is true that many SNU students are using SNUEV, but not everyone who took the course goes so far as to share their thoughts. This means SNUEV’s contents are determined by a rather small number of members, while its influence on almost all SNU students is quite immense. “When you search a course, you’ll usually end up with three or four brief evaluations, which is not much honestly. But because it is all that is offered there, people just buy into them so easily,” said LEE (22, International Relations). Moreover, there is always a risk of biased opinions, as in the case of some disgruntled students ranting unfairly on SNUEV, just to make the course look bad.
Nevertheless, many find SNUEV very useful. “I think I can screen out not-so-objective comments myself. In fact, last semester, I selected courses based on SNUEV’s information, and my GPA got so much better. It even helped me in terms of how to study,” said LEE (21, Economics). But some worry that SNUEV’s opinions are not about the real quality of a course but more about how to get an easy A. “I know it has become more and more important to get a good GPA in recent years, but SNUEV is somewhat worsening the situation. It deprives students of a chance to explore and wander around themselves, and is leading them to think that a good course equals an easy grade. Once addicted to SNUEV, no one will be able to enjoy learning something,” said KIM (22, Psychology).
In conclusion, it is not the website itself, but SNU students who decide the nature and future of this double-edged sword. Will more people start actively sharing their thoughts instead of just peeping at what’s already there? Will people try to be as objective as possible? Meanwhile, LEE and his teammates are planning to develop a smart phone application version of SNUEV soon. Widely loved and debated, SNUEV continues its evolution.
Written by LEE Sukyoung, SNU English Editor, sukyoung123n@gmail.com
Reviewed by Eli Park Sorensen, SNU Professor of Liberal Studies, eps7257@snu.ac.kr
Proofread by Brett Johnson, SNU English Editor, morningcalm2@gmail.com