Current instructor

Jeffrey Schmidt

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

Raw average: 2.91/5 from 75 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

PHYS531 · course not matched
Quality 2/5Difficulty 2/5
Jeff is a nice guy. He's trying. He's just not a very good lecturer. His lectures are all over the place and impossible to follow. He posts somewhat helpful lecture notes after the fact but it's clear he comes into class not knowing what he's going to talk about. Easy exams though.
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PHYSICS 249
Quality 2/5Difficulty 4/5
Didnt really learn anything, exams were not related to lectures or homework he gives a practice exam and you have to copy all the formulas from the practice exam and use them on the actual exam to do well so you dont actually learn anything.
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PHYS208 · course not matched
Quality 1/5Difficulty 5/5
Schmidt is passionate professor, but for a tough E&M unit he teaches it poorly. His slides are super complex and he doesn't make it easy to follow since he just reads off the slides without engaging the class at all. The labs and homework for this class are time consuming so you will need to lock in a lot more than you think for this class.
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PHYS207 · course not matched
Quality 1/5Difficulty 4/5
Schmidt is one of the two professors for Phys 207, and is a caring person if you go to his office hours, but his lectures are impossible to follow and understand. He does not try to engage the class in any way and just reads off complex slides which are impossible to follow. The homework is time consuming but the labs are not as difficult.
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PHYSICS 208
Quality 1/5Difficulty 5/5
Taking 208 with Jeff was an absolute nightmare. Class was super unorganized, didn't go over actual content in lectures, exams were super difficult, TA's were awful, they often ignored questions on piazza they didn't want to answer. This class honestly tested your ability to memorize questions/answers from course material rather than learning it.
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PHY208 · course not matched
Quality 1/5Difficulty 5/5
Jeff is boring. Really boring. I'd rather have this class be taught by a potted plant. Getting up at 8 am every Monday and Wednesday was impossible. Jeff doesn't teach the material well, and seemed surprised when nobody knew the answers to his questions. If I had an hour to live, I'd spend it in this class, because it felt like an eternity.
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Personal experiences, not a representative survey. Profile matching and captured coverage are shown in the source details.

Classes with Jeffrey Schmidt

PHYSICS 711 covers advanced theoretical dynamics, including Lagrangian and Hamiltonian mechanics, chaos, and an introduction to general relativity.

Offering recorded · Fall 2026

Recent recorded grades — Fall 2019: 3.40 GPA, 56.0% A/AB (n=25 letter grades); Fall 2020: 3.21 GPA, 33.3% A/AB (n=21 letter grades); Fall 2021: 3.12 GPA, 23.3% A/AB (n=30 letter grades).

historical GPA · grades

Fall 2022–Fall 2025

PHYSICS 799 is a graduate-level independent study course focused on conducting mentored research projects in physics.

Offering recorded · Fall 2026

historical GPA · grades

Spring 2022–Spring 2026 · limited sample

PHYSICS 801 covers selected topics in theoretical physics for graduate students.

Offering recorded · Fall 2026

Recent recorded grades — Fall 2019: 3.79 GPA, 96.4% A/AB (n=28 letter grades); Fall 2020: 3.63 GPA, 71.8% A/AB (n=39 letter grades); Fall 2021: 3.98 GPA, 100.0% A/AB (n=20 letter grades).

historical GPA · grades

Fall 2022–Fall 2024 · limited sample
PHYSICS 990

Research

1–12 credits

PHYSICS 990 is a research course where students conduct supervised research projects with individual faculty members.

Offering recorded · Fall 2026

No recorded grade history

Recorded teaching history

Explore courses taught by this instructor →
Browse recorded courses
TermCourseTitle
Fall 2026PHYSICS 711Theoretical Physics-dynamics
Fall 2026PHYSICS 799Independent Study
Fall 2026PHYSICS 801Special Topics in Theoretical Physics
Fall 2026PHYSICS 990Research

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

Instructor identity & provenance
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