Current instructor

Yayi Fu

/5Adjusted rating
/5RMP difficulty
captured reviews
About this rating

Raw average: 2.29/5 from 17 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 521
Quality 3/5Difficulty 3/5
Yes, she essentially just copies the textbook and isn't super engaging. However, you will still learn the material. She is very fair in grading and expectations and makes it easy to do well in the class if you try at all. She does cover a lot of material. Any complaints about accents or how quiet she is are untrue; she is completely understandable.
Rate My Professors ↗
MATH 521
Quality 5/5Difficulty 4/5
I believe you will either love or hate this course. If you are taking 521 with her, I would advise taking 421 or 375-6 before. She covers a massive amount of material, which can get very overwhelming. That said, I learned analysis at such a deep level from taking her course. The exams are straightforward enough if you prepare properly.
Rate My Professors ↗
MATH 521
Quality 3/5Difficulty 2/5
Lectures are indeed quite boring, but she is extremely fair. For midterms, all exam questions are taken verbatim from the review exercises in her notes (and she tells you this, so getting nearly 100% on both midterms is very feasible). Final is harder, worth 40% of your grade, but is doable.
Rate My Professors ↗
MATH 521
Quality 2/5Difficulty 3/5
The lectures are just bad. She goes very fast and reads straight out of her notes. Exams are odd, a lot of reproducing proofs from class/notes, but also then easier to study for. She does a decent job picking reasonably easy problems and grades generously, but definitely plan to supplement lectures with her notes and other texts.
Rate My Professors ↗
MATH 421
Quality 1/5Difficulty 2/5
Worst instructor ever, only read her notes on lecture as a reading software does. HW and exam are not relavent, HW super difficult no one can finish without using ChatGPT, exams are all about proof theorems in the notes, which became writing and memorizing for almost everyone, if every instructor teach like her, UWMadison math department are done
Rate My Professors ↗
MATH 340
Quality 1/5Difficulty 5/5
Yayi Fu's math 340 was the most miserable experience thus far in my schooling. She does not have any original thoughts during class, she just very quietly speedruns the material on the TV while reading the 1:1 text from the textbook as if she's being held at gunpoint. By the end of the semester our lecture dwindled from ~150 to ~15.
Rate My Professors ↗

Personal experiences, not a representative survey. Profile matching and captured coverage are shown in the source details.

Classes with Yayi Fu

Covers first and second semester calculus material while teaching math majors to write and understand proofs.

Offering recorded · Fall 2026

Yayi Fu receives harsh criticism for delivering dense, whispering lectures that rely on copying PDF notes rather than explaining concepts. Reviewers describe her exams as memorization-focused and disconnected from homework, with one noting contradictions between textbook and lecture proofs.

historical GPA · grades

Spring 2022–Spring 2026

Recorded teaching history

Explore courses taught by this instructor →
Browse recorded courses
TermCourseTitle
Fall 2026MATH 421The Theory of Single Variable Calculus

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

Instructor identity & provenance
{
  "instructor_uid": "instructor_948f1e684e42d306e22c5629",
  "source": "enrollment",
  "source_instructor_id": "fu38",
  "identity_basis": "netid",
  "identity_status": "source_identified",
  "name": "Yayi Fu",
  "email": "FU38@WISC.EDU",
  "first_observed_at": "2026-09-07 15:55:43.033547+00:00",
  "last_observed_at": "2026-09-07 15:55:43.033547+00:00",
  "ratings": {
    "review_count": 17,
    "quality": 2.29,
    "difficulty": 3.41,
    "quality_count": 17,
    "difficulty_count": 17,
    "profile_id": "rmp:3041657",
    "source_url": "https://www.ratemyprofessors.com/professor/3041657",
    "match_basis": "exact_name",
    "observed_at": "2026-09-07 15:58:01.953760+00:00",
    "courses": {
      "course_364c50303ed83d1234b4ea51": {
        "review_count": 4,
        "quality": 3.25,
        "difficulty": 3,
        "quality_count": 4,
        "difficulty_count": 4
      },
      "course_4aa5bbed0c86993f5f0dc832": {
        "review_count": 7,
        "quality": 2.43,
        "difficulty": 3.29,
        "quality_count": 7,
        "difficulty_count": 7
      },
      "course_eec4aae06b946a73f1878be4": {
        "review_count": 6,
        "quality": 1.5,
        "difficulty": 3.83,
        "quality_count": 6,
        "difficulty_count": 6
      }
    },
    "bayesian_quality": 3.0303706938089707,
    "prior_mean": 3.6596857835465957,
    "prior_weight": 20
  },
  "current": true,
  "courses": [
    {
      "course_uid": "course_4aa5bbed0c86993f5f0dc832",
      "course_id": "MATH 421",
      "title": "THE THEORY OF SINGLE VARIABLE CALCULUS",
      "credits_min": 3,
      "credits_max": 3,
      "gpa": 3.12
    }
  ],
  "revision": "e243353dcb7d79b7247ced91d69443ef4c2a6349",
  "instructor_url": "/instructors/YAYI_FU"
}