Jay Yang
3 courses · 33 reviews
Courses
All Reviews
Lectures are really confusing. He failed explain most of the concepts although he definitely have the knowledge.
11/10/2025
Yang was the best option available for Matrix Algebra. He's getting some bad ratings as its hard to compare to Schaefer. He did a good job lecturing, and tried to make sure everyone understood but was a bit hard to reach via email. Exams were fair, and homework was as well. Solid math option if available
5/4/2025
Professor Yang is super knowledgeable and takes time to make sure students understand WHY we are doing what we are doing
4/28/2025
Yes. I would say compared to other professors at WashU such as Karl Schaefer and Jesus Sanchez, his lectures are not always the most clear. However, he knows the content incredibly well and it just takes some courage to ask question in the class or in Office Hours. He will really take his time to break all concepts down to its basics:) He's great!
2/26/2025
I've had Yang for 309 Matrix Algebra and 132 Calc II. In Matrix, he was a fairly good lecturer and I felt the structure of his class was good for learning. There is a lot of content in the course so I can't really blame him for moving quickly. While he aimed for lowish exam averages of our grade, the grading scale was good so I thought it was fair.
12/23/2024
The professor himself is nice, especially if you go to office hours and/or ask questions. Personally I found the class difficult but I did get progressively better throughout the semester which was nice. The lectures also follow the textbook closely. My only complaint is I wish we got solutions for all practice tests, as that would've been helpful.
12/22/2024
Dr.Yang is not that great a lecturer but definitely a 10/10 person. Super accessible and nice during office hour. 2 Midterms each weights 15% and the final weights 40%. The first midterm is easy, but the second is kinda hard. The final exam is alright.
12/19/2024
For Math 309. Not sure why so many 1s here, but he's a good lecturer and cared about questions in lecture. grade distro was 2 exams worth 15% each, final worth 40%. Midterm 2 was very hard, 1 was easy, and the final was in between. Nice guy and clear lecturer, worth taking his class. I will say he was pretty inconsistent at responding on piazza tho
12/14/2024
2 or less hrs/week
Yang seemed like a system player- teaching from thornton’s work book in the way Thornton wanted him to. The teaching philosophy of this class was bad. Didn’t really teach anything and left kids to do practice problems during class. Yang would walk around answer questions, but there wasn’t enough time. However calc III isn’t such a hard subject and it works good enough.
5/19/2024
2-4 hrs/week
SO HARD. averages on exams were like 60s. however, there is a HUGE grading curve at the end
5/18/2024
He is a 5/5 Person. Seems like a super cool guy. As a professor though, he would say the proofs I was struggling with were trivial, made impossibly hard exams, and taught directly out of the text book. I guess 5/5 person and 1/5 educator averages out to 3/5 professor. Generous grading scale though which sorta made up for the impossible exams.
5/13/2024
Course content is pretty difficult, which makes lectures sometimes challenging to follow. But, Yang is very accessible during office hours and is always willing to go over any questions. Exams were quite difficult (all of our exam averages were within the D range), but Yang is generous with the curving scale.
5/13/2024
He wrote fast and messily and made a significant amount of errors in lecture. Overall, however, he was a nice professor and generally explained things decently. Somewhat sassy in a funny way.
12/23/2023
Yang knows the material, he just can't teach others it. His lectures just consist of him writing on the board without much explanation as he just expects you to already know the material as much as he does. If you ask him a question during a lecture, he'll most likely not even answer it. Just go to Schafer from the beginning, will save you time.
12/13/2023
Although Yang clearly knows what he's talking about, he's truly terrible at lecturing. He's constantly writing things on the board with little to no explanation, during a one lecture, he kept saying to just have to "guess" to solve the problem. Don't go to his class, just watch Schaefer's lectures online, you'll save yourself much confusion.
11/15/2023
He seems like a cool guy who knows the material, but most of my time in class was spent confused and trying to catch up with what was written on the board. At some point, I just stopped going and started watching the online lectures because it was a better use of my time. Tests were 70% of the grade.
11/14/2023
He is pretty nice guy, but the lecture moves on very fast and he only shows few examples for each concept.
9/2/2023
Teaches for like 10 minutes and then has you work independently for the rest of the time. Not very helpful and I ended up going to a different section for the rest of the year.
8/8/2023
had to teach most of the material to myself and in the math help room
5/5/2023
I thought he was a decent professor, although a lot of people coming out of FL22 Math 233 thought otherwise. His explanations of concepts were proof heavy. So if you like proofs, he's for you. If not, try to find another lecturer.
2/22/2023
Lectures were useless and many people moved to Thornton's instead. Usually doesn't cover enough questions in class and doesn't clearly answer questions people have. Homework and webwork are pretty much separate and have no commonality with exams.
1/8/2023
Cool guy but odd lectures. Will do 1-2 example problems per concept from workbook and then spend most of class letting students work while he goes around and answers questions. Explanations can be a bit convoluted but he does want students to succeed. Wouldn't mind taking a class with him in the future. Overall a chill assistant professor.
12/26/2022
Only taught about 1 problem per topic & then answered questions for 10ish minutes. It was very hard to conceptually understand what we were doing, and answer keys were often riddled with errors or would not show the problem's set up, so you HAVE to ask questions in lecture or else you'll be completely lost. Very helpful when you things ask though!
12/23/2022
Would have been interesting to cover some more of the theory behind concepts rather than just how to do problems. With that said, there were never any surprises on the tests and I always knew what content I could expect to see. Information wasn't always presented clearly in lectures but the professor answered questions that helped clear things up.
12/20/2022
Nice guy but the lectures move very fast and expect you to comprehend a lot at a fast pace. Definitely knows what he's talking about, just hard to follow. Homework is nothing like exams. Don't skip lectures because you'll miss a huge chunk of content and the recordings are horrible
12/20/2022
Yang definitely knows the content but he is very bad at teaching it and getting his point across. His lectures are very unclear and lectures consist of him speeding through two of the easiest questions in the textbook and then the students trying to figure everything out on their own for the rest of class. I've left every single lecture confused.
11/16/2022
barely teaches anything in lectures; not a good experience
11/16/2022
Frankly, If you see his name on WebStac, please ignore his session and choose whatever other professor is on the list. In terms of his teaching style, his pace is so fast as he devotes 10 minutes talking about two questions in the lecture, and the rest is working on your own. Unless you are a confident self-learner, otherwise don't take his class.
11/10/2022