Historical instructor
Original student reviews · all captured dates
Prof Van Swol is super knowledgeable in her field, and it's very apparent. The class itself was interesting because it's easy to recognize the content in everyday life. The textbook is nonnegotiable, and your exams will include material from it. Listen to it, and you'll be fine.Rate My Professors ↗
Exams are all multiple-choice, drawing from specific examples & theories (mostly from lecture). There are a few papers, but nothing is too hard if you pay attention and take good notes. Lectures are fairly interesting, but slides are somewhat disorganized. However, she is clearly knowledgable about the topic and uses fun examples, so overall good!Rate My Professors ↗
She was one of my favorite professors at UW Madison! She's funny and makes very interesting lectures. I liked listening to her talk which actually made me pay attention. Exams were fair and you lowkey do not need to buy the textbook, just google the studies it mentions before the exam. CA 368 was really interesting- definitely reccomend!Rate My Professors ↗
Very knowledgable and passionate. She was funny and engaged with her students.Rate My Professors ↗
Her lectures were structured terribly and often went on tangents, the class itself lacked a concrete structure and was very disorganized.Rate My Professors ↗
I had her this past sem, she is very spacey and did not give us much information for papers, assignments, or quiz/tests. Half the lectures are online and one in-person lecture per week. she would often last minute cancel discussion sections, not send the link to online review, and overall was not on top of her teaching. this class was disorganizedRate My Professors ↗
Personal experiences, not a representative survey. Profile matching and captured coverage are shown in the source details.
No teaching recorded in Fall 2026.
No courses match this selection. Try the full catalog or another term.
| Term | Course | Title |
|---|
Teaching history may be incomplete. Course pages contain course-specific feedback and citations.
{
"instructor_uid": "instructor_b78f609cf01152b3308da530",
"source": "legacy",
"source_instructor_id": null,
"identity_basis": "name_only",
"identity_status": "unresolved",
"name": "Lyn VAN SWOL",
"email": "VANSWOL@WISC.EDU",
"first_observed_at": "2025-04-16 05:20:33.104844+00:00",
"last_observed_at": "2025-07-06 01:49:47.203835+00:00",
"ratings": {
"review_count": 68,
"quality": 4.28,
"difficulty": 2.87,
"quality_count": 68,
"difficulty_count": 68,
"profile_id": "rmp:1093879",
"source_url": "https://www.ratemyprofessors.com/professor/1093879",
"match_basis": "exact_name",
"observed_at": "2026-09-07 16:22:25.729352+00:00",
"courses": {
"course_a54fb931d3a848c691620152": {
"review_count": 1,
"quality": 5,
"difficulty": 3,
"quality_count": 1,
"difficulty_count": 1
},
"course_f31522dc42623fdab5304530": {
"review_count": 1,
"quality": 4,
"difficulty": 4,
"quality_count": 1,
"difficulty_count": 1
}
},
"bayesian_quality": 4.13901949626059,
"prior_mean": 3.6596857835465957,
"prior_weight": 20
},
"current": false,
"courses": [],
"revision": "e243353dcb7d79b7247ced91d69443ef4c2a6349",
"instructor_url": "/instructors/LYN_VAN_SWOL--instructor_b78f609cf01152b3308da530"
}