Current instructor

Franklin Hobbs

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

Raw average: 4.89/5 from 19 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

MSE350 · course not matched
Quality 5/5Difficulty 4/5
Hobbs is an amazing professor who cares about his field and students. Exams are multiple choice, and very difficult. Luckily, they aren't weighted terribly for the total grade. I got C's on all 3 exams and ended with an A.
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MSE350 · course not matched
Quality 5/5Difficulty 3/5
Best professor I have taken so far. Franklin cares about students and truly is a great lecturer. MSE 350 was engaging and interesting. Lectures are interactive, and he has great hands-on ways to teach complex concepts. He brought great energy to class every single day.
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MSE350 · course not matched
Quality 5/5Difficulty 3/5
Prof. Hobbs is an amazing professor! He really cares about your success and is an engaging lecturer.
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MSE350 · course not matched
Quality 5/5Difficulty 4/5
Dr. Hobbs was an awesome professor who really cares about his content. The class isn't easy due to the difficulty of exams and the homework/knowledge checks being graded on accuracy but Franklin was always willing to help before/after class and in office hours;He adjusted the grading cutoffs by one pointish-he didn't announce it, but did it in MyUW
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MSE350 · course not matched
Quality 5/5Difficulty 4/5
Professor Hobbs is a great professor who truly cares about the subject matter he is teaching. He is very kind and accessible outside of classes. Homework and quizzes were not difficult, however the exams were very hard. If you want to do well I think you have to go to office hours and make sure you understand everything covered in lectures.
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MSE350 · course not matched
Quality 5/5Difficulty 3/5
MS&E 350 is a class that doesn't feel hard- the lectures are awesome, the homework is doable, but the exams were mildly difficult making his feel harder than it should be. Overall, loved Dr. Hobbs' class and would recommend it to any engineering major
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Personal experiences, not a representative survey. Profile matching and captured coverage are shown in the source details.

Classes with Franklin Hobbs

Introduction to the structures and properties of solid materials, covering phase equilibria, mechanical behavior, and selection.

Offering recorded · Fall 2026

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2024: 3.17 GPA, 46.9% A/AB (n=211 letter grades); Fall 2024: 3.35 GPA, 60.0% A/AB (n=210 letter grades); Fall 2025: 3.12 GPA, 44.8% A/AB (n=221 letter grades). Includes jointly taught sections.

historical GPA · grades

Spring 2022–Spring 2026

MS&E 360 is a laboratory course teaching sample preparation and application of quantitative microscopy, X-ray diffraction, and properties measurement for structure-property relationships.

Offering recorded · Fall 2026

Recent recorded grades — Fall 2023: 3.67 GPA, 89.7% A/AB (n=29 letter grades); Fall 2024: 3.65 GPA, 76.5% A/AB (n=17 letter grades); Fall 2025: 3.66 GPA, 89.3% A/AB (n=28 letter grades). Includes jointly taught sections.

historical GPA · grades

Fall 2022–Fall 2025 · limited sample

Recorded teaching history

Explore courses taught by this instructor →
Browse recorded courses
TermCourseTitle
Fall 2026MS&E 350Introduction to Materials Science
Fall 2026MS&E 360Structures & Phases Lab

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

Instructor identity & provenance
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