He explains content really well, and holds extra office hours for weeks with homework. Four (rather difficult) homework assignments on excel during the semester. 4 Unit exams are online, unlimited time, open book, open note. Very conceptual but thats okay because everything is gone over well in lecture and in his slides. Final exam is reasonable.Rate My Professors ↗
Current instructor
Justin Sydnor
What students say
Original student reviews · all captured dates
Quality 5/5Difficulty 2/5
Quality 5/5Difficulty 2/5
Sometimes Justin over-explains concepts/ideas, but that's honestly the only criticism I have. He's a really nice, smart professor who wants his students to succeed. The content is pretty fun (a mix of psych & econ) and it's very manageable. Overall, I'd highly recommend taking a class with Justin.Rate My Professors ↗
Quality 4/5Difficulty 4/5
Justin belongs to a new class of economists -- behavioral economists. Thus, 660 is a course Justin teaches with a lot of passion! His combination of humor and research make every class period intriguing. You'll learn how human biases affect decision-making and the best interventions and nudges to use to help improve your judgement moving forward.Rate My Professors ↗
Quality 5/5Difficulty 2/5
Professor Sydnor is an awesome guy -- super approachable, always willing to help, gives good feedback (although it sometimes can come pretty late). The class was unlike the other RMI courses I took at UW (its all about human behavioral patterns and managing the associated risk of those behaviors), but was very insightful and actually pretty fun.Rate My Professors ↗
Quality 5/5Difficulty 2/5
Justin is great! The class is super interesting and his lectures feel more like a discussion. He is really big on how you communicate your ideas, which is good. The class is super interesting. It's kind of a mix between psychology, econ, and a little bit of analytics. I would definitely recommend taking this class if you need an RMI requirementRate My Professors ↗
Quality 5/5Difficulty 3/5
Justin is simply fantastic. One of my favorite professors at UW.Rate My Professors ↗
Personal experiences, not a representative survey. Profile matching and captured coverage are shown in the source details.
Classes with Justin Sydnor
RMI 990 is an independent research course for Ph.D. students to complete their dissertation requirements.
Offering recorded · Fall 2026
No recorded grade history
RMI 999 is an independent reading and research course for PhD students in Risk Management and Insurance.
Offering recorded · Fall 2026
historical GPA · grades
Spring 2022–Spring 2022 · limited sampleRecorded teaching history
Explore courses taught by this instructor →Browse recorded courses
Teaching history may be incomplete. Course pages contain course-specific feedback and citations.
Instructor identity & provenance
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