Reviews of professor Zahra Sotoudeh

Rating: 1.0/5, difficulty: 2.0/5
Her lectures are unengaging and low in quality. The online format is poor and encourages cheating. If you really want to learn, be prepared to learn everything on your own. Wiley homework is annoying. It can be an easy A if you just copy down the solutions to all the homework to your notebook and bring it to the exam.

Rating: 2.0/5, difficulty: 4.0/5
Almost all of the work is online and can be difficult to work with and learn from, since that is what is encouraged in class.

Rating: 3.0/5, difficulty: 3.0/5
Derivations? Nonexistent. Intuitive understanding? Nonexistent. You are given equations, provided no intuition as to WHICH to use to solve problems aside from what you build yourself doing homework, and just told to plug and chug. Independent learning is a MUST. Every problem was solved using knowledge from my high school physics class.

Rating: 1.0/5, difficulty: 5.0/5
If you are reading this to see if you want to take Zahra or not.... go back and change your professor. She doesn't teach you anything and gets mad when the average test scores are 30%.
She uses a format where you watch YouTube videos before attending class and does "sample problems" in class. However, these dont help and she doesnt finish examples.

Rating: 2.0/5, difficulty: 4.0/5
Since going online, she hardly actually lectures and just goes over example problems in class expecting you to have taught yourself the material. Had her for statics and the tests and quizzes were like the homework and example problems for the most part, but not the case in this class. No partial credit at all. Open note tests but they hardly help

Rating: 2.0/5, difficulty: 2.0/5
Sotoudeh fulfills the teaching portion, mediocre, and JUST MAYBE helps students out, doesn't do any grading... Her homework is online, her tests are given in-person online, all through Wiley. Here's the formula to an A, something that I realized a little too late. Do the E.C., copy down the soln for every question online, take that to the test

Rating: 4.0/5, difficulty: 4.0/5
Prof Sotoudeh is passionate about her job. I had here during COVID virtual school and she made every effort she could to make the class transferable to an online format. There is a ton of HW, it is the best way to learn the material. She used Wiley's online textbook which I wasn't a fan off at all. He video lectures and slideshows were better.

Rating: 2.0/5, difficulty: 4.0/5
She is super nice and willing to help, however, you use wiley plus and video lectures to teach yourself this super dry material. She would assign more than a dozen videos to watch before synch meetings which would put me to sleep. Her synch meetings were mostly examples and going over equations from videos. Lots of wiley HW.

Rating: 1.0/5, difficulty: 4.0/5
She doesn't lecture. This isn't a "oh she's just bad at it" thing. No. She has on multiple occasions said she does not want to lecture. Instead she has you watch pretty unhelpful Canvas videos, most  of which aren't hers.This class has more than once made me want to vomit out of anger and confusion. If you have the ability, take someone else.