As temperatures drop lower than motivation to do much of anything this time of year, our CyMail accounts are once again filling with the seemingly dreaded course evaluations. Of course they flood you all at once, making your inbox rise from zero unread message — or 1,432 unread — to five or six, depending on your course credit.

The connotation that comes with course evaluations is overwhelmingly negative when presented to students. Although most take less than two minutes to fill out, the group consensus is that they are pointless and unnecessary. This is simply not the case.

These evaluations help professors and lecturers understand what is coming across effectively and what is getting lost during the lectures and classes. In short of sounding cliche, they’re an essential, yet optional, part of the courses you’re taking.

The university can help mend part of the problem by finding a more effective way to get the feedback it desires from the students. A potential fix is simply making the evaluations mandatory. While running the risk of getting a false or half-done answer, evaluations can be done during the meeting time of the final exam or in the final class period before finals week.

For students, we can be more accepting and realistic with what the evaluations actually do. First of all, they can pave the way for better education for our peers in future classes and lectures. Take the example of having a really poor educator for a semester. You disliked how the material was presented — not because they failed you or because you slacked off — and felt there was a group consensus that there is a better way to learn in that specific environment. While the semester has come to a close for you, you still have an opportunity to make a difference for your future classmates.

The similar example to that would be paving the way for better education for incoming freshmen classes. With little to no experience of a college setting classroom, you can personally provide a better learning environment for them. In a sea of nearly 35,000 students, we have to, in a way, look out for one another.

It’s easy to hate on course evaluations. It might be “the cool thing to do.” When one of your roommates drops the infamous “course evals are out,” you can easily sigh and move on with your life, making no difference at all.

But as students, we have a small but unique way to better our university. With direct impact, departments will listen to our voices in these course evaluations. We have a chance to help one another out in future classes by letting these educators know what is working and what isn’t, with majority voice.

While you wait for that pot of coffee to brew or for your Easy Mac to finish cooking in the microwave, open up a course evaluation and enact change at Iowa State. Let your opinion be heard.