Current instructor

Jerry Zhu

Adjusted rating
RMP difficulty
captured reviews
About this rating

Raw average: 3.07/5 from 27 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 540
Quality 3/5Difficulty 5/5
5-star reviews are coming from top students who stand from their perspectives. If you only took probability, calc3, and linear algebra, and are still a freshman like me, wait for Prof. Sala's section (GOAT). The ability to break down complex theories extremely clearly to the dumb(me) is the true ability. Teaching is an art, and Sala masters it.
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COMPSCI 540
Quality 1/5Difficulty 5/5
Prof. Zhu will have a 100+ slide presentation for each lecture. However, he reads off the slides and its tough to follow. He also doesn't really respond well on the course Piazza. He is also not professional in terms of meeting his own deadlines. The projects will change them often after they are due. His exams also don't really test material well.
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COMPSCI 540
Quality 1/5Difficulty 3/5
The material for the class was interesting, but taught in a very lazy way. Dr. Zhu didn't prepare for lectures at all and gave the impression that he didn't care about his students. The regrades on the homework penalized you even if you just made a small, insignificant mistake. The class was poorly taught.
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COMPSCI 540
Quality 1/5Difficulty 4/5
I respect Dr. Zhu and his career, but his undergrad class is horrible. Lectures are disorganized. Poor designing. The class average was less than 60% for the first midterm. There are basically no resources. There are thousands of pages worth of badly written slideshows that are given, but no one is told which parts of the slides to actually study.
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COMPSCI 540
Quality 3/5Difficulty 2/5
Prof Zhu is a solid professor, not the best, not the worst. His lectures, while not the most captivating, are worth attending since his examples generally do a better job helping you understand new concepts than his slides alone. He is a very nice guy, but homework instructions were often disorganized, and midterm exam feedback took WEEKS.
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COMPSCI 540
Quality 5/5Difficulty 3/5
He has a knack for explaining difficult concepts in an accessible way. Even still, you need a solid math foundation to fully understand the algorithms he covers, but having a basic grasp of the algorithms is often all you need for a good grade.
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Personal experiences, not a representative survey. Profile matching and captured coverage are shown in the source details.

Classes with Jerry Zhu

Senior Honors Thesis is an individual study for seniors completing theses for honors in the Computer Sciences major, arranged with a faculty member.

Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources

No recorded grade history

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

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

Theoretical Foundations of Machine Learning covers advanced mathematical theory including statistical learning theory, Vapnik-Chevronenkis Theory, model selection, high-dimensional models, nonparametric methods, probabilistic analysis, and.

Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources

historical GPA · grades

Fall 2022–Fall 2025 · limited sample

Recorded teaching history

Distinct courses recorded per term

Explore courses taught by this instructor →
Browse recorded courses
TermCourseTitle
Spring 2027COMPSCI 681Senior Honors Thesis
Spring 2027COMPSCI 682Senior Honors Thesis
Spring 2027COMPSCI 699Directed Study
Spring 2027COMPSCI 790Master's Thesis
Spring 2027COMPSCI 799Master's Research
Spring 2027COMPSCI 899Pre-dissertator Research
Spring 2027COMPSCI 990Dissertation
Spring 2027COMPSCI/ECE/STAT 861Theoretical Foundations of Machine Learning
Fall 2026COMPSCI 681Senior Honors Thesis
Fall 2026COMPSCI 682Senior Honors Thesis
Fall 2026COMPSCI 691Senior Thesis
Fall 2026COMPSCI 692Senior Thesis
Fall 2026COMPSCI 699Directed Study
Fall 2026COMPSCI 790Master's Thesis
Fall 2026COMPSCI 799Master's Research
Fall 2026COMPSCI 899Pre-dissertator Research
Fall 2026COMPSCI 990Dissertation
Fall 2026COMPSCI/ECE 760Machine Learning

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

Instructor identity & provenance
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