“What the actual fuck is the Q guide?” you might be asking yourself. That’s okay—we feel you. Half the time we can’t get it to spit out the answers we’re looking for, but most of the time it’s one of the most invaluable things to help us figure out which orgo course to take. (Answer: Chem 17 if  you’re pre-med; neither if you value sleep.)

The Q guide is compilation of student reviews of past courses, and includes information on time spent on the course outside of class, amount spent on books, as well as general comments and professor-specific feedback. Read on for the most useful tips.

1. Read the comments. You can find these in the third tab at the top of the screen for any given course. Some courses either don’t have comments because their professors chose not to release them (which tells you a LOT about a course, if we’re honest) or for some other whacko reason. Either way, you’ll get the best information from the students who actually took the time to share their unfiltered thoughts with you. If you’re looking for deets on what the exam and workload are really like, this is the place to go.

2. Some things should be taken with a grain of salt. Certain courses have enough feedback that you can get a general vibe, so be weary when looking comments from those that only had like 5 people enrolled. Glowing feedback, as well as the ridiculously negative, can be an outlier, so proceed with caution.

3. The workload bar on the first page is usually legit.Again, evaluate this in the context of your own #skillz: if you suck at physics, it probably won’t be a 3-6 hour per week class, even if that’s what the majority of people seemed to indicate. Conversely, if you actually are good at physics, maybe p-sets won’t take you 10 hours. Who knows. Either way, use common sense, people.

4. Click “return to courses” at the top of the first page to find literally all the reviews for all the courses offered for that particular semester. Toggle the settings to access reviews from past years. This is particularly helpful if something hasn’t been offered in a while and you want to know how the prof from 2009 ran the class.

5. Don’t be a dick at the end of the semester: submit your Q scores. You know how you like reading actual feedback from real people who took the course? Yeah, those real people would want you to review Ec10 so that they know how shitty the course can actually be. Be candid, and fill out the parts where you’re required to come up with an original thought. Tough, we know.

6. Take your final first, then submit evaluations. Then you get to tell people that the class was smooth sailing until you got fucked on a weirdly-structured and poorly-written final. Do it for the masses. They need to know.