Current instructor

Michael Ferris

Adjusted rating
RMP difficulty
captured reviews
About this rating

Raw average: 1.78/5 from 23 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

Quality 1/5Difficulty 4/5
You really need to do well on the homework, since on the project he'll take off 30-40% just because he feels like it, even if you follow the directions carefully. A bunch of people were asking him to please give any amount of justification for the final project grades, and he tells us to ask him in office hours NEXT SEMESTER, what a joke.
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Quality 1/5Difficulty 5/5
Very bad academic experience in uw-madison. No clear rubric(almost 0) , harshly grading with very poor feedback. You don't even know if you have a final exam.
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Quality 1/5Difficulty 5/5
Incapable of giving proper instructions, rubrics, or fair grading. Many HW problems need to be clarified on Piazza. The project spec had a few vague bullet points, a few scribbled notes in the margins as "feedback", and yet he cut tons of points harshly. The full project reqs are also just some bullet points with no clear rubric. Abysmal professor.
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Quality 1/5Difficulty 4/5
This guy's course policies are nonsense...automatic -8% on the project for working in pairs and the final exam gets held because he got mad at some people apparently copying homework code. Overall he is also bad at giving clear assignment directions.
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Quality 4/5Difficulty 4/5
Prof. Ferris is such a great person and is beyond helpful during office hours. If you use his office hours, you will succeed in this class. It is a ton of work and the homeworks are super time-consuming, but they do force you to learn. We did not have a final this semester because he cancelled it when he didn't find anyone cheating.
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Personal experiences, not a representative survey. Profile matching and captured coverage are shown in the source details.

Classes with Michael Ferris

Advanced independent study in industrial engineering conducted under faculty supervision to support graduate-level research.

Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources

historical GPA · grades

Fall 2023–Spring 2026 · limited sample

Recorded teaching history

Distinct courses recorded per term

Explore courses taught by this instructor →
Browse recorded courses
TermCourseTitle
Spring 2027ISYE 699Advanced Independent Study
Spring 2027ISYE 790Master's Research and Thesis
Spring 2027ISYE 890Pre-dissertator's Research
Spring 2027ISYE 990Research and Thesis
Fall 2026COMPSCI 682Senior Honors Thesis
Fall 2026COMPSCI 699Directed Study
Fall 2026COMPSCI 790Master's Thesis
Fall 2026COMPSCI 799Master's Research
Fall 2026COMPSCI 899Pre-dissertator Research
Fall 2026COMPSCI 990Dissertation
Fall 2026ISYE 699Advanced Independent Study
Fall 2026ISYE 790Master's Research and Thesis
Fall 2026ISYE 890Pre-dissertator's Research
Fall 2026ISYE 990Research and Thesis

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

Instructor identity & provenance
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