Current instructor

Andrea Arpaci-Dusseau

Adjusted rating
RMP difficulty
captured reviews
About this rating

Raw average: 3.92/5 from 13 quality ratings. The adjusted rating blends this with the UW review average (3.66/5), weighted as 20 additional ratings. Smaller samples stay closer to that average. Each captured review is counted once in the prior; this does not correct who chooses to leave a review.

RMP profile ↗ · All captured review dates; profile matched by name.

What students say

Original student reviews · all captured dates

COMPSCI 537
Quality 4/5Difficulty 4/5
She really knows her material, and can teach it very effectively. It is a hard class and you have to spend a lot of time to learn, but she is always there to support your learning. Solid choice 100%, can't go wrong with her.
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COMPSCI 537
Quality 4/5Difficulty 4/5
She really knows her material, and can teach it very effectively. It is a hard class and you have to spend a lot of time to learn, but she is always there to support your learning. Solid choice, can't go wrong with her.
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COMPSCI 537
Quality 5/5Difficulty 4/5
Andrea organizes her lecture really well. She knows exactly what concepts and difficult for students to understand and focuses on them multiple times in her lectures. Her lecture videos are amazing, a great help before the exam. Assignments are difficult and time consuming but they help you learn a lot.
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COMPSCI 537
Quality 4/5Difficulty 3/5
The lecture wasn't very riveting, but they were helpful and the content necessary to learn was conveyed well. She also puts lectures online and the book is the BEST textbook I've ever had. HIGHLY recommend reading it. Projects weren't too bad, definitely get a project partner. This is a class I felt I learned something useful and interesting.
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COMPSCI 537
Quality 4/5Difficulty 4/5
Andrea is a really nice lady who seems to care about students and is passionate about systems programming but the content is dry and power lectures can be hard to sit through. Luckily she uploads the lectures and the slides are grade. Her exams are fair but the projects are pretty time consuming but she curves for them
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COMPSCI 537
Quality 3/5Difficulty 4/5
Nice lady but dry lectures. Often giggles and mumbles when speaking, uploads lec videos, which makes you less motivated to go to her lectures. Overall, a better than average professor.
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Personal experiences, not a representative survey. Profile matching and captured coverage are shown in the source details.

Classes with Andrea Arpaci-Dusseau

Directed study projects for Computer Science juniors and seniors, arranged with a faculty member.

Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources

historical GPA · grades

Fall 2022–Spring 2026 · limited sample

This course explores issues in designing and implementing large-scale distributed systems, covering topics such as fault tolerance, scalability, replication, consensus, and reliability.

Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2023: 4.00 GPA, 100.0% A/AB (n=53 letter grades); Spring 2025: 3.88 GPA, 95.8% A/AB (n=24 letter grades); Spring 2026: 3.80 GPA, 95.0% A/AB (n=40 letter grades). Includes jointly taught sections.

historical GPA · grades

Spring 2023–Spring 2026

Pre-dissertator independent research supervised by a faculty member for students who have completed a master's degree but have not reached dissertator status.

Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources

No recorded grade history

Recorded teaching history

Distinct courses recorded per term

Explore courses taught by this instructor →
Browse recorded courses
TermCourseTitle
Spring 2027COMPSCI 682Senior Honors Thesis
Spring 2027COMPSCI 699Directed Study
Spring 2027COMPSCI 739Distributed Systems
Spring 2027COMPSCI 790Master's Thesis
Spring 2027COMPSCI 799Master's Research
Spring 2027COMPSCI 899Pre-dissertator Research
Spring 2027COMPSCI 990Dissertation
Fall 2026COMPSCI 681Senior Honors Thesis
Fall 2026COMPSCI 699Directed Study
Fall 2026COMPSCI 702Graduate Cooperative Education
Fall 2026COMPSCI 790Master's Thesis
Fall 2026COMPSCI 799Master's Research
Fall 2026COMPSCI 899Pre-dissertator Research
Fall 2026COMPSCI 900Advanced Seminar in Computer Science
Fall 2026COMPSCI 990Dissertation

Teaching history may be incomplete. Course pages contain course-specific feedback and citations.

Instructor identity & provenance
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