Historical instructor

JOHN SCARBOROUGH

Adjusted rating
RMP difficulty
captured reviews
About this rating

Raw average: 3.75/5 from 8 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

HIST561 · course not matched
Quality 4/5Difficulty 2/5
Great professor. Really helpful if you need it. Lectures are done nearly entirely by memory (and he throws in some good jokes from time to time). Exams aren't difficult if you look at the practice exams and go over lecture materials. Two exams and that's it - no other hw besides reading. Highly recommended for a low-work Hist Sci course.
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PHARM561 · course not matched
Quality 2/5Difficulty 5/5
This class is cloudy and abstract at best, poorly organized and extremely difficult.
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CLASS561 · course not matched
Quality 5/5Difficulty 4/5
What a wonderful class! A full mix of real medicine (prof's background in medicine a real plus) with expertise in the Greek and Latin sources, a vivid evocation of ancient medicine from prehistoric time to about AD 200. Galen a highlight. Perhaps too much reading assigned, but what I did was relevant. Prof's humor low-key, subtle, appropriate.
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HISTO562 · course not matched
Quality 5/5Difficulty 3/5
Splendid introd. to Later Roman culture, medicine, related. Careful integration of early Muslim medicine with Byzantine texts, good on Kievan medicine, rather fascinating stuff of the Crusades and military medicine. Highly recommended for anyone unaware of cross-connections between Byzantium, Islam, and Renaissance European medicine
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HIST561 · course not matched
Quality 4/5Difficulty 2/5
I initially started doing all of the readings, but it was too much to keep up. I ended up doing about 15% altogether and pulled off an A. If you want to do well, print off his lecture notes and come to class and take good notes. Unless you are extremely interested in the topics, don't spend the $400 on the textbooks, they were not needed.
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CLSCS561 · course not matched
Quality 5/5Difficulty 2/5
Awesome guy. Knows a lot, but can be soft-spoken at times. $387 total book cost for this class - to do well you have to read and go to lecture. Doing the practice exams will help A LOT since there are two exams (midterm/final) with 50 questions each.
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Personal experiences, not a representative survey. Profile matching and captured coverage are shown in the source details.

Classes with JOHN SCARBOROUGH

No teaching recorded in Fall 2026.

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Recorded teaching history

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

Instructor identity & provenance
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