Reviews of professor Xian Du

Rating: 4.0/5, difficulty: 3.0/5
Prof Du always is happy to be in class and this passes on to the students. When the course got more difficult Du sometimes struggled to slow down and explain difficult ideas. Cheat sheets are a huge help on exams, but he does not scale regardless of average. Class is not mandatory but, he does give quizzes and even extra credit, it's worth going.

Rating: 2.0/5, difficulty: 4.0/5
His exam review is trash, also he sometimes does not even give 2 hours for an exam. It's extremely easy to get lost in his lectures. He was ok, and the material is challenging.

Rating: 5.0/5, difficulty: 3.0/5
I loved Shane. He was extremely kind and explained things so thoroughly. He applied the content to real life and made the lectures something I wouldn't dread going to.

Rating: 3.0/5, difficulty: 4.0/5
Xian was new to teaching this semester, but really cared so much about each student passing. The language barrier was difficult to get through at first, but by the end you get used to it. He gave pop quizzes and a lot of extra opportunities to do well. Tests were very difficult for me, but I also did nothing in class and googled the homework.

Rating: 2.0/5, difficulty: 5.0/5
He seems like a nice guy who means well. But it's simply unacceptable that it's more than halfway through the semester and zero assignments have been graded. It's not cool that he retroactively made an assignment worth 20% that the syllabus said would be worth 15%. And now he's giving us 1 week to do another difficult assignment worth 20%.

Rating: 4.0/5, difficulty: 4.0/5
Amazing human being, but kind of an average professor. The redeeming factor was how accessible he was outside of class. His lectures tended to be confusing, but he was great in his office hours. The textbook is also very helpful. The material is pretty boring, but it's not too bad once you get the hang of it

Rating: 5.0/5, difficulty: 2.0/5
Du is one of the best in the program. Super kind and cares about his students' success. Gives homework with clear grading criteria that is similar to the exams. Lectures legit prepare you for the tests with highlighted information that you put on the cheat sheet he lets you bring to the exam. Super fair, awesome guy, all-around good class.

Rating: 4.0/5, difficulty: 3.0/5
Du is a very solid professor. He cares about your learning, and does everything he can to make sure the grading is decent. Tells you exactly what is on the exams, there are no surprises. You get a cheat sheet, and he is accessible for questions. He struggles with pace, he goes fast when going through proofs. His examples help a lot though.

Rating: 2.0/5, difficulty: 4.0/5
Confusing lectures with terrible exam reviews.  Difficult to ask questions because he will start to answer what he thinks you're gonna ask before you finish.  Be prepared to do a lot of self study (the textbook is helpful).  His teaching isn't effective so I relied heavily on the TAs.  They pretty much taught everything to me. Grading was clear.