Current instructor

Sebastien Roch

Adjusted rating
RMP difficulty
captured reviews
About this rating

Raw average: 2.23/5 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

MATH 535
Quality 1/5Difficulty 4/5
For Math345, professor speaks way too fast for anyone to fully understand. He doesn't explain well and is in his own head. Not a good teacher.
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MATH 535
Quality 4/5Difficulty 3/5
All MATH535 lecture material comes from an online textbook written by Dr. Roch himself. Attendance is measured using TopHat (full credit for attending at least half the classes). He's a pretty good lecturer, focusing on the most important topics and leaving time for questions. If you attend class, scoring well on the exams isn't too hard.
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MATH 535
Quality 5/5Difficulty 2/5
I don't understand these reviews, Sebastien is amazing at teaching. He has a deep understanding of the material, gives easy exams, helpful outside of class.
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MATH 535
Quality 1/5Difficulty 5/5
A great way instructing things and letting student know Math is not the thing. Super "rigorous" and quite confusing, and so could possibly make the topic complicated to a level that is not appropriate for this level of class.
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MATH 535
Quality 3/5Difficulty 2/5
He is not good at teaching but he is very willing to help and his lecture notes are very good for self-learning. So it's okay to take class with him if you are a good self-learner.
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MATH 535
Quality 1/5Difficulty 4/5
I don't know what Prof. Roch is talking about, he can introduce a hundred theorems with little to no explanations, let alone give examples. HW is also challenging, you should take care yourself and learn by yourself.
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Personal experiences, not a representative survey. Profile matching and captured coverage are shown in the source details.

Classes with Sebastien Roch

Linear Algebra and Optimization introduces linear algebra, multivariable calculus, and optimization theory with applications to data science, implemented in Python.

Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2025: 3.12 GPA, 52.9% A/AB (n=17 letter grades).

historical GPA · grades

Spring 2025–Spring 2026 · limited sample

Covers mathematical foundations of networks for data science, focusing on algorithmic graph theory, linear algebra, network statistics, and PageRank.

Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources

historical GPA · grades

Fall 2023–Spring 2026

Recorded teaching history

Distinct courses recorded per term

Explore courses taught by this instructor →
Browse recorded courses
TermCourseTitle
Spring 2027MATH 345Linear Algebra and Optimization
Spring 2027MATH 444Graphs and Networks in Data Science
Spring 2027MATH 990Reading and Research
Fall 2026MATH 345Linear Algebra and Optimization
Fall 2026MATH 890Pre-dissertator Research
Fall 2026MATH 990Reading and Research

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

Instructor identity & provenance
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