Historical instructor

MATTHEW JOHNSTON

Adjusted rating
RMP difficulty
captured reviews
About this rating

Raw average: 4.62/5 from 13 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

521 · course not matched
Quality 2/5Difficulty 2/5
Johnston was not a good professor for this upper-level theoretical math classes. He would actually refer to large sections of proofs as "hand wavy" a few times each lecture.
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MATH 415
Quality 5/5Difficulty 3/5
He's very good at explaining the material, and his lecture notes are pretty good. The homework takes forever and will destroy your weekends. The exams are fairly difficult given how squeezed for time you'll feel, but (usually) nothing from out of left field. If you put in the effort, AB is pretty much the worst case scenario.
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MATH 319
Quality 5/5Difficulty 3/5
I would recommend Professor Johnston for anyone who needs or wants to take differential equations. Very clear during lecture. Very happy to answer questions. Puts lecture notes online prior to lecture and are honestly better than the text book.
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MATH 319
Quality 5/5Difficulty 2/5
The course was tough and the final exam was brutal (luckily the grading scale is extremely generous), but I cannot imagine a better professor for this class. He articulates well, gets you interested and explains concepts clearly. If you have trouble understanding something, he is very good at checking email and his office hours are reasonable.
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MATH 319
Quality 5/5Difficulty 2/5
Best math professor I've had so far. Online notes are immensely helpful, I wish every math prof did the same. Example problems give enough info to succeed on homework and exams. Speaks loud and clear in lecture. Gives challenging homework problems that really make you learn the material. Overall, awesome prof. Final exam was long, but expected.
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MATH 319
Quality 5/5Difficulty 3/5
This guy is great. He presents everything clearly and thoroughly. His typed notes are excellent, so you don't even have to take notes during class and can pay attention to the actual lecture itself (or not go at all...) Homework can be lengthy but is doable and the midterms were fair, but the final surprisingly difficult. Never used the book.
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Personal experiences, not a representative survey. Profile matching and captured coverage are shown in the source details.

Classes with MATTHEW JOHNSTON

Covers nonlinear dynamical systems, stability, bifurcations, and chaos with scientific applications.

No offering record · Fall 2014

with this instructor · course overall, matching historical terms

historical GPA · grades

Fall 2010–Fall 2014

Recorded teaching history

Distinct courses recorded per term

Explore courses taught by this instructor →
Browse recorded courses
TermCourseTitle
Fall 2014MATH 415Applied Dynamical Systems, Chaos and Modeling
Spring 2014MATH 521Analysis I
Fall 2013MATH 319Techniques in Ordinary Differential Equations
Spring 2013MATH 320Linear Algebra and Differential Equations
Fall 2012MATH 415Applied Dynamical Systems, Chaos and Modeling

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

Instructor identity & provenance
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