Current instructor

Somesh Jha

Adjusted rating
RMP difficulty
captured reviews
About this rating

Raw average: 3.91/5 from 22 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

COMPSCI/ECE/MATH 435
Quality 1/5Difficulty 5/5
The professor himself was a great person. However, it was hard to understand since he chose not to provide the lecture slides before the lecture, he thought students would not come. He uploaded the lecture slides after lectures sometimes on that weekend or the the week after that weekend. The final which was very important was really unexpected.
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COMPSCI/ECE/MATH 435
Quality 1/5Difficulty 5/5
Somesh himself is a decent professor. However, there is no transparency whatsoever in this class. The curve by which the class is graded is unknown until the end of the semester after the grades are in, meaning you have no idea what your grade is. Makes everything easy until an impossible final exam (worth 30%) which only focused on like 4 concepts
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COMPSCI/ECE/MATH 435
Quality 5/5Difficulty 4/5
Somesh is extremely passionate about crypto. He does well at making lectures engaging and understandable. He is very helpful outside of class as well, and he usually does not move on until the class understands a topic. The exams/quizzes are difficult, but if you study and understand the materials, they're not too bad and the graders are generous.
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COMPSCI/ECE/MATH 435
Quality 5/5Difficulty 3/5
Somesh was one of the best professors I have had in the CS department. He is funny, engaging, and helps guide students to find solutions to the homework easily, without just doing the work himself. He introduced lots of tricks and ideas to help make difficult subject matter easy to understand, and made sure the class still had fun.
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COMPSCI/ECE/MATH 435
Quality 2/5Difficulty 4/5
6 homework assignments, one 100% for turning in your name,lowest dropped so it was graded on 5 homeworks+free 100%, 2 midterms and a final. Low maintenance, so good to take with hard classes but the exams were kinda impossible unless you memorize every word of each topic. The final was a trick, it was weird math and didn't include half the topics.
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COMPSCI/ECE/MATH 435
Quality 5/5Difficulty 3/5
Somesh is one of the best professors I have had for a while. He is very engaging with the class, and makes very complex ideas around crypto easy to understand. He gives plenty of time for homework (with there only being 7*) and assigns them only when discussed in lecture, Overall, a very nice guy who loves the material and wants you to love it too.
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Personal experiences, not a representative survey. Profile matching and captured coverage are shown in the source details.

Classes with Somesh Jha

COMPSCI 699

Directed Study

1–6 credits

Directed study projects for Computer Science juniors and seniors, arranged with a faculty member.

Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources

Fred SalaDan Negrut+49 more

historical GPA · grades

Fall 2022–Spring 2026 · limited sample
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 763

Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence

3 credits

Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence explores security and privacy, covering differential privacy, algorithmic fairness, adversarial machine learning, and end-to-end trustworthy systems.

Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2024: 3.90 GPA, 100.0% A/AB (n=21 letter grades); Spring 2026: 3.95 GPA, 100.0% A/AB (n=60 letter grades). Includes jointly taught sections.

Somesh Jha

historical GPA · grades

Spring 2024–Spring 2026 · limited sample

Recorded teaching history

Distinct courses recorded per term

Explore courses taught by this instructor →
Browse recorded courses
TermCourseTitle
Spring 2027COMPSCI 699Directed Study
Spring 2027COMPSCI 790Master's Thesis
Spring 2027COMPSCI 799Master's Research
Spring 2027COMPSCI 899Pre-dissertator Research
Spring 2027COMPSCI 990Dissertation
Spring 2027COMPSCI/ECE 763Trustworthy Artificial Intelligence
Fall 2026COMPSCI 699Directed Study
Fall 2026COMPSCI 702Graduate Cooperative Education
Fall 2026COMPSCI 790Master's Thesis
Fall 2026COMPSCI 799Master's Research
Fall 2026COMPSCI 899Pre-dissertator Research
Fall 2026COMPSCI 990Dissertation
Fall 2026COMPSCI/ECE/MATH 435Introduction to Cryptography

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

Instructor identity & provenance 
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