Current instructor

Rishab Goyal

Adjusted rating
RMP difficulty
captured reviews
About this rating

Raw average: 2.70/5 from 10 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

CS-435 · course not matched
Quality 5/5Difficulty 4/5
Rishab is a great professor, knowledgeable and organized. HWs are hard but you have 2 weeks to write them, and will give out useful hint during lecture. Office hour is a MUST to do well in homework, TAs for this course are also knowledgeable and helpful throughout the semester. Cryptography is a hard topic, don't blame the professor for it lol
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CS-435 · course not matched
Quality 4/5Difficulty 3/5
I will state first that I will not give a low grade for a course being too difficult; Rishab knows what he is talking about in class and his summaries and course organization are very clear. Therefore, I think this course is a good course for those who are willing to spend a little time thinking, you think, instead of mindlessly writing code.
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CS-435 · course not matched
Quality 2/5Difficulty 5/5
He knows the material very well but is not good at explaining them in an undergraduate level. The homework takes way too long (15+ hours) and I really grinded hard to get an A in this class.
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CS-435 · course not matched
Quality 5/5Difficulty 5/5
Crypto is one of the hardest classes Ive taken at UW, but Prof. Goyal did a good job breaking the content down into small pieces in lecture and encouraged participation. That being said The class was at a level far beyond what I &others were expecting, but I think that is more the fault of the CS department to give us an adequate math foundation.
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CS-435 · course not matched
Quality 3/5Difficulty 5/5
While Professor Goyal is very smart and gets better through the semester, he has trouble explaining topics at an undergrad level but would be great for a grad course. The class is astronomically hard with the problem sets taking >20 hours to do and impossible without help from the TAs. Goyal isn't a bad lecturer, but the class is extremely hard.
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CS-435 · course not matched
Quality 3/5Difficulty 4/5
He isn't super organized, but he is an entertaining lecturer and he is super passionate about cryptography.
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Personal experiences, not a representative survey. Profile matching and captured coverage are shown in the source details.

Classes with Rishab Goyal

COMPSCI 899

Pre-dissertator Research

1–9 credits

Pre-dissertator independent research supervised by a faculty member for students who have completed a master's degree but have not reached dissertator status.

Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources

Fred SalaSong Gao+63 more

No recorded grade history

COMPSCI/ECE/MATH 435

Introduction to Cryptography

3 credits

Introduction to cryptography covering secure transmission of digital information, distinguishing perfect from computational security, and introducing technical aspects.

Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2023: 3.15 GPA, 54.0% A/AB (n=113 letter grades); Fall 2024: 3.30 GPA, 55.9% A/AB (n=68 letter grades). Includes jointly taught sections.

Rishab Goyal

historical GPA · grades

Fall 2022–Spring 2026

Recorded teaching history

Distinct courses recorded per term

Explore courses taught by this instructor →
Browse recorded courses
TermCourseTitle
Spring 2027COMPSCI 790Master's Thesis
Spring 2027COMPSCI 799Master's Research
Spring 2027COMPSCI 899Pre-dissertator Research
Spring 2027COMPSCI/ECE/MATH 435Introduction to Cryptography
Fall 2026COMPSCI 790Master's Thesis
Fall 2026COMPSCI 799Master's Research
Fall 2026COMPSCI 880Topics in Theoretical Computer Science
Fall 2026COMPSCI 899Pre-dissertator Research

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

Instructor identity & provenance 
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