Worst professor Ive ever had in all of college, high school, middle school, even my elementary school teachers were better at teaching. If you attend the lectures I promise you will leave more confused and have less iq. But attendance is mandatory so youre screwed. In the first lecture he went over Lab 1, and then proceeded to assign lab 7 for hwRate My Professors ↗
Historical instructor
JAMES LAWLER
What students say
Original student reviews · all captured dates
Quality 1/5Difficulty 5/5
Quality 1/5Difficulty 3/5
If you have Lawler for 307, prepare yourself to be confused for the semester. His lecture notes are basically just essays and are unhelpful. He gives his lectures before the lab session, which doesn't help because nobody know what he is talking about. The lab instructions are incredibly vague and unhelpful. Hope for a helpful TA to explain the lab!Rate My Professors ↗
Quality 4/5Difficulty 2/5
Professor Lawler's lectures may perhaps be less than exciting for some students, but he genuinely tries to pick subject material that he believes to be interesting. He is very nice and cares about the lectures he presents.Rate My Professors ↗
Quality 4/5Difficulty 3/5
Professor Lawler is one of my favorite professors I have taken a class with so far. His lectures are very interesting. He relates the lab work to research in the past or what he is currently doing. The actual labs are easy and TA's are usually helpful. Do not save labs for end of semester because there is little time to catch up.Rate My Professors ↗
Quality 1/5Difficulty 1/5
Physics 308 with Lawler was easily the most pointless class I have ever taken at UW. He made attendance at all of his lectures required even though he described many of them as "enrichment lectures" which did not pertain to class material. When he did talk about class material he made things very unclear and was super boring. Would not recommend.Rate My Professors ↗
Quality 1/5Difficulty 5/5
He's easily the worst physics teacher I've ever had. It's obvious the entire class has no idea what's he saying when he's talking, and half the time he doesn't even address the class, he just mumbles to himself and writes on the board. DO NOT take a class with him unless you're desperate and willing to do a lot of work.Rate My Professors ↗
Personal experiences, not a representative survey. Profile matching and captured coverage are shown in the source details.
Classes with JAMES LAWLER
No teaching recorded in Fall 2026.
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Recorded teaching history
Explore courses taught by this instructor →Browse recorded courses
| Term | Course | Title |
|---|
Teaching history may be incomplete. Course pages contain course-specific feedback and citations.
Instructor identity & provenance
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