Current instructor

Farrah Madison

/5Adjusted rating
/5RMP difficulty
captured reviews
About this rating

Raw average: 3.15/5 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

Quality 3/5Difficulty 3/5
Madison is one of the three professors for Bio 151 and when compared to the other two, her lectures are not as engaging. Overall she lectures well, but I found myself spending more time outside of class to understand her topics. The labs also required some outside class hours but the TAs are also helpful to guide you through completing lab reports!
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BIO151 · course not matched
Quality 3/5Difficulty 2/5
She isn't the best lecturer ever but the content she teaches is fairly interesting.
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BIO151 · course not matched
Quality 5/5Difficulty 3/5
My favorite lecturer for BIO 151 - she is very passionate about the concepts she covered during her portion of the class. She was slightly disorganized in relaying her thoughts, but she corrected/caught her mistakes.
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BIO151 · course not matched
Quality 2/5Difficulty 3/5
Uses tophat so you gotta go to lecture. Clearly very passionate about the topics, but a bit unorganized. Sometimes it felt like she didn't know what she was talking about and was just reading off the slides. A TON of content, way more than the first two units. Exam was decently straightforward, but very small details ended up on the exam.
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BIO151 · course not matched
Quality 4/5Difficulty 3/5
Dr. Madison's unit was a lot of material, but super interesting. You can tell she is passionate about physiology and it makes lectures more engaging and she can often be funny. She is very organized and clear about what material we are responsible for knowing, which I really appreciated. Overall, I really enjoyed having her!
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BIO151 · course not matched
Quality 4/5Difficulty 3/5
Her unit definitely contained the most content, but she was great at explaining everything. Her slides were well organized and had lots of visual aids which also helped a lot. If you fill out the learning objectives you'll do well on her exam.
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Personal experiences, not a representative survey. Profile matching and captured coverage are shown in the source details.

Classes with Farrah Madison

Introductory Biology covers cell structure, metabolism, genetic information flow, genetics principles, and animal physiology.

Offering recorded · Fall 2026

Farrah Madison lectures well but is considered less engaging than her colleagues, requiring students to spend more outside time to understand topics. Her labs demand additional hours, though TAs are helpful with reports.

historical GPA · grades

Spring 2022–Spring 2026

ZOOLOGY 153 covers introductory biology topics like cell function, genetics, and physiology for engineering majors without a lab.

Offering recorded · Fall 2026

Recent recorded grades — Fall 2023: 2.93 GPA, 29.4% A/AB (n=51 letter grades); Fall 2024: 2.67 GPA, 21.4% A/AB (n=56 letter grades). Includes jointly taught sections.

historical GPA · grades

Spring 2022–Spring 2026

ZOOLOGY 299 is a directed study course where students conduct independent research and develop hypotheses under faculty mentorship.

Offering recorded · Fall 2026

historical GPA · grades

Spring 2022–Spring 2026 · limited sample

ZOOLOGY 699 offers selected research projects for junior and senior students.

Offering recorded · Fall 2026

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2025: 4.00 GPA, 100.0% A/AB (n=6 letter grades).

historical GPA · grades

Spring 2022–Spring 2026

ZOOLOGY 962 is a graduate seminar covering various fields of zoological research.

Offering recorded · Fall 2026

historical GPA · grades

Spring 2022–Spring 2022 · limited sample

ZOOLOGY 990 is a graduate research course where students conduct advanced biological research under faculty mentorship to fulfill program requirements.

Offering recorded · Fall 2026

No recorded grade history

Recorded teaching history

Explore courses taught by this instructor →
Browse recorded courses
TermCourseTitle
Fall 2026BIOLOGY/BOTANY/ZOOLOGY 151Introductory Biology
Fall 2026ZOOLOGY 153Introductory Biology
Fall 2026ZOOLOGY 299Directed Studies in Zoology
Fall 2026ZOOLOGY 699Directed Studies in Zoology
Fall 2026ZOOLOGY 962Seminar-ethology
Fall 2026ZOOLOGY 990Research

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

Instructor identity & provenance
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