Reviews of professor Ying-Chao Kao

Rating: 2.0/5, difficulty: 4.0/5
I wouldn't recommend this course online, maybe better in person. There was way too much of an expectation on students in the middle of a panny and the workload was pretty heavy. Readings were dense and the lectures were long. Group projects guided much of this class. Very interesting content, but online aspect sucked. No adjustment to course load

Rating: 3.0/5, difficulty: 4.0/5
Prof Kao is nice and cares about his subject, but doesn't always explain things clearly. Vocab is often not defined clearly. A lot of concepts are taught through the readings, which can be hard to follow. For the first half of the class, the readings are very important. I feel like I learned from the class, but it could have been clearer.

Rating: 2.0/5, difficulty: 4.0/5
He's really sweet and quick with emails, but his tests are really hard especially if you don't do the readings. He also has two group projects so look out for that

Rating: 5.0/5, difficulty: 3.0/5
The course revolves around writing a 25-page research paper which sounded very stressful at first. Each week, we worked on different parts of the paper and were given good instructional videos to follow along with, and good feedback on our work. Gets very stressful if you fall behind, but otherwise a very helpful and good course. Would recommend.

Rating: 2.0/5, difficulty: 5.0/5
Be prepared for a lot of reading. He has multiple readings very week, it's how you do basically all the learning in this course. There are a lot of group projects, but not many assignments in total. The midterm and exam are extremely long with a written and oral part. He's very sweet and passionate but his expectations are high.

Rating: 5.0/5, difficulty: 3.0/5
His score is really low, but trust me when I say he is the sweetest soul and as long as you turn in your assignments, confident in it or not, you will get the point :)

Rating: 5.0/5, difficulty: 3.0/5
A lot of Dr.Kao's assignments can be intimidating, but really all he wants is proof that you cared enough to put in the work and pay attention. He really values participation in class and will reward students with extra credit if he knows they are doing their best. Essentially, if an assignment looks impossible, it probably just looks that way.

Rating: 1.0/5, difficulty: 5.0/5
Do not take this class.! Though Dr. Chao is a wonderful person and very passionate about sociology he is a HORRIBLE teacher. Be prepared for a lot of readings