Historical instructor

YOUSHENG SHI

Adjusted rating
RMP difficulty
captured reviews
About this rating

Raw average: 1.79/5 from 28 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 340
Quality 5/5Difficulty 3/5
Professor Shi cares about his student. he gives careful review of the material and is willing to repeat the part that I got confused on. Very reachable during office hour, recommend to take his class.
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MATH 567
Quality 1/5Difficulty 5/5
The grading cutoff for this course is so high unlike other undergrad courses. Lectures are dull, proofs are exactly the same as it is in the textbooks. You don't need to go to class, just read the book. Lots of homework and exam-heavy. Kind of stingy with extra points. His finals are usually extremely hard. Avoid him and take someone else.
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MATH 567
Quality 2/5Difficulty 3/5
Number theory is a tough course, so one assumes to have good background in abstract algebra. I think the department should also add Math 542 as its prerequisite since there is much more knowledge to be assumed before taking this course. Though I was not a big fan of the textbook selection since it contains no useful examples except Sage.
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MATH 567
Quality 1/5Difficulty 5/5
He assigns lots of homework every week and he's very stingy about giving extra points. He is in favor of in-class exams; 2 midterms and 1 final. iI is a GPA killer since he seems to have no clear criteria about grading. The lectures are quite hard to follow as he skips so many steps. The exams are very hard; you need 90% to get an A.
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MATH 567
Quality 1/5Difficulty 5/5
He comes down with arrogance when asked a question in class for some reason. The tests are unreasonably hard as he boasts about making the exams intentionally harder in class. The lectures are boring, and the proofs are sloppy but he expects you to do perfectly on the exam ... did not learn anything from his lectures. Waste of money
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MATH 542
Quality 5/5Difficulty 4/5
Yousheng is a great guy and very approachable during office hours. He cares about the students doing well in class. The final exam was quite difficult but his grading is quite generous. He is very easy going and down to earth unlike many other professors at the math department, quite snobby and arrogant. Take him and avoid Laurentiu Maxim.
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Personal experiences, not a representative survey. Profile matching and captured coverage are shown in the source details.

Classes with YOUSHENG SHI

No teaching recorded in Fall 2026.

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Recorded teaching history

Distinct courses recorded per term

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Browse recorded courses
TermCourseTitle
Spring 2023MATH 340Elementary Matrix and Linear Algebra
Spring 2023MATH 567Modern Number Theory
Fall 2022MATH 748Algebraic Number Theory
Spring 2022MATH 542Modern Algebra 2
Spring 2022MATH 567Modern Number Theory
Fall 2021MATH 320Linear Algebra and Differential Equations
Spring 2020MATH 340Elementary Matrix and Linear Algebra
Fall 2019MATH 541Modern Algebra 1

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

Instructor identity & provenance 
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