Current instructor

Yudong Chen

Adjusted rating
RMP difficulty
captured reviews
About this rating

Raw average: 3.67/5 from 3 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 540
Quality 4/5Difficulty 2/5
He is an okay lecturer at best, but you can tell he's passionate about the subject. There are weekly projects, but they are pretty easy and interesting. The tests are wack tbh - hardest part of the entire class.
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COMPSCI 540
Quality 3/5Difficulty 4/5
The class is really influenced by Young Wu but Yudong is a goat. He's not the best lecturer but tries to improve based on feedback. He's also just rly cute. Significant improvement between lecture quality in the first and second half of the semester. The exams are tough I honestly can't give you advice yet. I'll keep you posted.
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COMPSCI 540
Quality 4/5Difficulty 4/5
Disclaimer: Grading scheme for CS540 is not very clear. Every semester they change it up, and had a curve with a fixed number of As... to be allocated. Yudong Chen was great, though, unlike Young Wu. He takes his time and explains clearly (subjective). He sometimes wrote notes on his iPad instead of scrolling the course website, which was better.
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Personal experiences, not a representative survey. Profile matching and captured coverage are shown in the source details.

Classes with Yudong Chen

COMPSCI 681

Senior Honors Thesis

3 credits

Senior Honors Thesis is an individual study for seniors completing theses for honors in the Computer Sciences major, arranged with a faculty member.

Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources

Fred SalaMing Liu+20 more

No recorded grade history

COMPSCI/ISYE/MATH/STAT 726

Nonlinear Optimization I

3 credits

Nonlinear Optimization I covers theory and algorithms for nonlinear optimization, focusing on unconstrained optimization techniques.

Offering recorded · Spring 2027 · Sources

Recent recorded grades — Spring 2023: 3.54 GPA, 71.7% A/AB (n=46 letter grades); Spring 2024: 3.36 GPA, 81.0% A/AB (n=21 letter grades); Spring 2025: 3.31 GPA, 52.4% A/AB (n=21 letter grades). Includes jointly taught sections.

Yudong Chen

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 681Senior Honors Thesis
Spring 2027COMPSCI 682Senior Honors Thesis
Spring 2027COMPSCI 799Master's Research
Spring 2027COMPSCI 990Dissertation
Spring 2027COMPSCI/ISYE/MATH/STAT 726Nonlinear Optimization I
Fall 2026COMPSCI 681Senior Honors Thesis
Fall 2026COMPSCI 682Senior Honors Thesis
Fall 2026COMPSCI 702Graduate Cooperative Education
Fall 2026COMPSCI 790Master's Thesis
Fall 2026COMPSCI 799Master's Research
Fall 2026COMPSCI 990Dissertation
Fall 2026COMPSCI/ISYE 727Convex Analysis

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

Instructor identity & provenance 
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