Jane Macdonald was an absolute disaster from the first day of class until the very end. It was clear that she had not bothered to thoroughly review the course material herself, and as a result, her lectures were confusing and disorganized. She left me feeling frustrated and cheated out of a quality education. AVOID AT ALL COSTS

I've never written a review throughout my entire degree, but Jane MacDonald compelled me to. Let's just say if we knew the exact value of the worst professor and subtracted Jane from it, we'd get a relative error of 0. That's how 'precise' she is at being the worst. Handwriting as bad as her willingness to teach and lectures. Avoid her at all cost.

Jane was massively underprepared to teach such an important course and, as a consequence, she made the class an incredibly frustrating experience. The only source to study is the slides, which are very low quality and not posted with her annotations. 85% test based (with weekly quizzes) and no scaling. Such low quality of instruction is an insult.

Jane is unapproachable, rude, and doesn't seem to like her students. She was unprepared for lectures and didn't know the material well, so she didn't encourage questions at all and often ignored students when they raised their hand. Tests are fair though (straight from lecture slides) so it's still easy to do well if you can read her writing.

AVOID HER AT ALL COST.

85% of the grading was test-based. Weekly quizzes often about obscure material not from the course textbook, which was the only source of knowledge since her lecture notes were useless and not uploaded. Computing assignments had asinine requirements, and points were often deducted with no good reasons. Just avoid Jane like the plague, please.

Hey everyone, she is teaching again in summer 24. Avoid at all cost, I would rather delay graduation than do a course with her.

Very difficult to read her mathematical formulas and handwriting.

literally the most unprepared prof ive ever had. she doesnt care about the course and she is unable to teach it. she goes over the allotted 50 minutes of lecture time to go over her slides. she herself lacks an understanding of the course material. feels like I'm being robbed of my money from sfu.

Stammers and garbles. Many times has no idea what she's talking about. I am fine with her strict policies and all, but SFU should really use more competent lecturers, at least in key courses if there's too few ppl (lol). Being understaffed is one thing, grasping at straws is another

its so frustrating being in a class where she is your prof.

bad prof, doesnt know what shes teaching. midterm was not all testing on what she taught it was only proofs and in class we were taught how to solve questions not proof. Useless class. Lectures arent recorded, notes aren't shared.

Jane doesn't seem to understand the content that she is teaching, and often pauses during her lectures to re-read what she has written. Class corrects her mistakes several times per lecture. CAs are on material not well taught during lecture. Be prepared to self study a lot, and not just by the textbook -- she barely follows that.

I have had bad experiences with professors at SFU but none of them were as bad as Jane, I have only finally made an account on here just to post this review. Cons: bad handwriting, does not allow taking pictures, unclear grading criteria. I am also sure that she would not be able to solve her own midterm in under 50 minutes unless she has the key

It does not matter how unfortunate your situation is. Please avoid this professer at all costs. She frequently makes mistakes during her lectures and costs us extra time. She does not provide filled out notes nor recorded lectures and if you did take notes her explanations are very bad. She is an EXTREMELY HARD/STRICT MARKER.

Don't let the pretty(?) face distract you from the fact that she is truly the devil in disguise. I've never seen a more incompetent professor. It is evident that she doesn't have a clue about what she's teaching because of the numerous amount of blank stares at the board she does per lecture. Tests are bad. Disorganized. Doesn't post lecture notes

Worst prof I've ever seen. Doesn't post solutions to exams/assignments and doesn't post lecture slides. Scribbles on slides in class and expects us to decipher her notes.

Terrible professor

I've had unsupportive professors in past semesters but Jane's teaching is unacceptable. She's a fast-paced note writer and has very messy handwriting, but prohibits everyone from taking pictures of her notes. Nearly every lecture she loses her train of thought and stammers for minutes on end (no exaggeration.) I wish I listened to the reviews.

i really wish she just posted her lecture notes! would make my life so much easier! exams are based entirely on them

The course material seems fun, but she makes this class a disaster. It's impossible to take proper notes because of her handwriting and unnecessary strict policies (no photos). Professors are supposed to support students in learning, but she does the opposite, making the class impossible to learn properly.

Jane can barely figure out her own slides when she's explaining it. If you're going to be teaching a course, I'd expect you to at least try to practice and memorize enough of your own content. It totally ruins my learning and train of thought. I hate that I have to erase my notes while following what you're fixing. This occurs every lecture btw

Jane struggles to understand her own slides while explaining them. If you're going to teach a course, I'd expect you to practice and memorize your content better. It disrupts my learning and train of thought when I have to erase my notes to follow your corrections. This happens every lecture, by the way.

I've encountered unsupportive professors in previous semesters, but Jane's teaching is particularly problematic. She writes notes quickly and her handwriting is very messy, yet she forbids students from taking pictures of her notes. I regret not paying attention to the reviews.

Poor professor, lacks understanding of the subject matter. The midterm focused solely on proofs, despite the fact that class instruction was on solving questions, not proving them. The class is unhelpful. Lectures are not recorded, and notes are not shared.

This is by far the most unprepared professor I've ever had. She shows no interest in the course and cannot teach it effectively. She consistently exceeds the allotted 50-minute lecture time to cover her slides, and she herself seems to lack an understanding of the course material. It feels like I'm being robbed of my money by SFU.

She frequently stammers and garbles her words, often appearing unsure of what she's talking about. While I can tolerate her strict policies, SFU should ensure more competent lecturers, especially for key courses, even if enrollment is low. Being understaffed is one thing, but settling for inadequacy is another.

This course with Jane is the most difficult course I've ever taken, and I'm in my last semester. Her quizzes are hard and irrelevant to the homework, marking is strict and she is super harsh about taking notes but talks fast, doesn't allow photos, and she wants students to fail. She took down lecture videos after 1 week with no notice.

Arbitrary rules to gatekeep learning. No calculators. Only half-complete lecture slides posted, you must attend class to complete them. Barely follows textbook. Tests based on lecture slides. Uses projector, nothing digital. Doesn't know how to set up projector if it's small. Awful handwriting. Midterm was 1.5 hours of work in a 50 minute class.

Doesn't know what she's talking about half the time, hand writing is poor, questions on tests aren't related to homework questions, sucks in general

She is extremely unsupportive and gate keeping toward her material. Deletes note immediately after writing them so you can't copy them down. Taking pictures of her note in class is now an academic and copy right violation. In exams or quiz, if you forget to write "a)" you will lose mark for the whole question. Arbitrary marking tendencies.

Jane rambles in class often, and strays off her note, and usually makes a lot of mistake. Yet, often time she doesn't follow the textbook and criticizes it for it's lackings. Fair exam, but very compressed in time. She makes up a load of "academic violation" policies regarding her notes, which has never been seen before at SFU.

She is the worst professor i have ever taken. DO NOT, i mean NEVER take this course with her. Although she doesn't count attendance, you MUST go to class as she doesn't share her notes due to "copyright" issues. Her writing is as bad as a doctor, you are writing notes not prescription Jane. There are more to say but just DO NOT EVER TAKE HER.

I was considering on declaring a math minor, and after this course, I don't want it anymore. THE ABSOLUTE HORRIBLE, never been this excited to write on the course survey at the end of the semester, I have a lot to say. The fact that 20+ students gave a 1/5 in quality withtin the span of one month, should tell you something.

I am a fairly hardworking student, and have never had any problem with math or stem subjects, but Jane has made this class so much harder than it has to be. She was a difficult professor, threatening to deduct all mark if you ever dare dispute gradings. She made "taking pictures" of her note in class an academic dishonesty. A horrible teacher.

constantly wanders off her slides and lost her train of thought. Then made mistakes immediately. Always put the projectors on maximum brightness or split screens making it extremely small and hard to read, but never bothers to fix it. Arrogant, uncaring, unsupportive, borderline power tripping. She is indeed the worst at SFU for math.

what a shame! Could have inspired people but no.

she obviously did not have a clue what's going on during the lecture, but is also very arrogant. Often points out all the wrong things about the textbook and goes off a tangent. She jumps from a small section in one chapter to another and back. Hands down, a new level for bad teaching.

It is unfortunate that she is insistent on making the class as difficult as possible. You must attend lectures. She refuses to use technology and her writing is horrendous. She adds unnecessary complexity to the material and makes mistakes in her notes OFTEN and does not inform the class of the mistakes. AVOID AT ALL COSTS.

Her attitude towards students will only create resentment. She makes note taking incredibly difficult, and then yells at us when students take pictures trying to keep up due to "copyright infringement". She's only making enemies for herself, and she doesn't support our learning. Some lecturers give their whole textbook away for free, in comparison.

Avoid if you can. You need to go to class to fill in the notes but she goes too fast to follow along and copy down what you need. She gets mad if you take pictures on her slides and has a lot of "asides" in her work, yet if asked to go back to a slide so we can finish writing she refuses and says we dont have time.

Unfortunately, all the reviews posted here are accurate. She is extremely unprofessional and yells at students who are just trying to keep up with her horrible lectures and handwriting. I wish she understood that we just want to learn and provided the lecture material that we paid for. The reasons she won't do this remain unclear.

When you're horrible at teaching, please, at least do your best to make learning material accessible. Very childish, disorganized, and does not care about teaching quality, and instead, enforces extremely strict policies. I blame the university for allowing such a person to teach a course that includes important concepts for STEM major students.

Jane is a temperamental lecturer with wavering emotions. She has horrible handwriting, does not allow taking picture, has vague assignment questions. And don't get me started on her "one page report" when the assignment was 6 pages long. She was extremely rude during office hour, dismissive and sometime straight up refused to talk. $4000 wasted!

She thought I was taking pictures of her notes, but I was actually taking a selfie. Anyway this is still a great class if you are interested in fashion or dressing.

She's very good at jumping at the most negative conclusion of students. Take her class if you enjoy being yelled at.

Jane is an absolute maniac in the course. She berates her students for taking pictures of her lecture slides, commenting on how they are 'copyrighted'. keep in mind, no one would ever use these lecture slides, even if all traces of mathematics was erased from the world and this was the only thing left of it. avoid at all cost.

Only the 1 star comments are true. Jane dresses as a different movie character every day, for example, she was dressed as princess peach last week for no reason. I wonder what kind of person has the confidence to show up to work. in front of 200 students. in a bright. pink. costume. dont take if you value your sanity.

Tough lectures, tough class, someone needs to get jane her meds for whatever mental illness she has. girliepop is out here with so much confidence that her lectures are about to be 'stolen'.... by who? other professors? bestie no one wants your slides. they're more confusing than a kindergartener's coloring book. get it together Jane.

Jane has no lecture recordings or filled out notes. she prays for her students to fail her class. and hope they fail it miserably. She deletes her zoom lecture recordings a week after they are posted. if that is not praying on our downfall. I dont know what is. save yourselves. do not take this class with her.

She asks her students to put up their hands to ask permission to take pictures of her lectures. its a waste of time, disturbs the flow of class. and everyone hates her for it. if you want to see someone dig their own grave. take this class.

Jane has the exceptional ability to make a simple concept seem like rocket science. she could probably confuse a monkey on how to open a banana. Jane can even confuse herself on the concept she is suppose to teach. SFU needs to step up their game and hire qualified profs

I know SFU is undergoing budget cuts but I didn't know how bad it was until I met jane. I'm sure jane is a very smart individual outside the classroom. however, as an individual, Jane is quite talented at making a classroom of students mock her behind her back without her knowing.

If I knew my MACM 316 professor would be Jane Macdonalds, I literally would have quit school to work at mcdonalds instead. Please save your selves and your money and DO NOT take this course under any circumstance.

sometimes when jane teaches, I wonder if she is hard of thinking.

Jane has no respect for her students or anyone for that matter. when asked if she can zoom in on her projector her answer was 'no sorry I can't' sometimes she makes me wonder how a professor with at least one PHD can have room temperature IQ

Jane acts like her lectures are a fashion show. so far, the OOTD has consisted of - baseball player - sadness from inside out - zebra - blends in with classroom I honestly dont know where she's getting these outfits from

Jane asks that all her students bring a 'simple calculator' for exams. which is reasonable until she says no to my mickey mouse singing calculator. such discrimination should not be allowed in a classroom. jane should be fired not only for her inability to teach, but also for the fact she is duller than a box of crayons

Sometimes when i sit in class I wonder if jane rents out her brain as a speed bump on the weekends. She lacks understanding of what she is teaching so much so, she pauses for 3-4 minutes just to collect herself. someone should really stop her from stealing perfectly good oxygen from all the other forms of intelligent life on this planet

Her lectures are indeed amazing. She would be talking, then abruptly stop talking for 5 minutes to look at the filled note to figure out what was going on. Also, copyright my ass. She stole her Matlab code from a guy who wrote it in 2015. Even forgot to delete that line. Even her lecture note content are stolen.

if you guys think that she doesn't monitor this page, you are wrong. She is spending time not to prepare for lecture slide, but to monitor her rmp and compile a list of "suspected students" that she would dock marks from. Stay safe out there you guys, your money is now being used against you.

She really enjoys power tripping over you. Her markings is absolutely racially targeted. Just need some of my friends to speak up and planning to take her to court. She also verbally harassed her students alot in class, no wonder she doesn't allow cameras.

Why does she keep treating classroom like a runway?

Always on a power trip - tells students not to take pictures of her slides, and another day saying "you can ask to take photos - yes, go ahead, if you ask I'll let you." She dressed as princess peach for no reason one time, idk why. She explains concepts poorly, distracting from core concepts, and assigns homework on material not taught in class.

Hi, SFU Department of Mathematics, Jane has the potential to be an excellent researcher. Please don't waste her talent and time by letting her teach macm 316.

Cares too much about looking pretty and being a petty tyrant and too little about students' well being. Verbal expression in class borderline harassment. Dressed up funny at best and inappropriate at worst.

Why the hat?

To say that "you are just lazy" and "you just don't put in work" to explain away Jane's authoritarian approach toward students is simply minimizing for a lot of us out here trying to cope with 4 courses per semester while paying international tuition fee. Her writings and lecturing are bad, speaking is unclear with a lot of stammering, that's fact

Class is a mess, does not know what is she talking about, writes fast, no taking pictures, does not explain calculations, and no filled notes or any lectures, this class is self studying but is really hard to teach yourself since there is not that much online sources for the topics we're studying. Do your self a favor and take it with someone else.

I wouldn't mind if she were strict but organized and knew how to teach properly. The problem is that she is extremely disorganized and doesn't know how to teach at all, yet she is very strict with students and expects a lot from us. Literally the worst kind of professor. I wish I had taken this course with Brenda. I could have learned so much more.

Poor time management skills, an inability to explain concepts well, and making tons of mistakes during lectures, which really confuses students. Simply being "nice" doesn't make someone a good professor, especially in a subject like this.

Mistakes in notes and computing assignments, illegible writing, scribbles over mistakes, students cannot take pictures of any notes, does not post annotated slides, no formula sheets, no midterm solutions, clueless during lecture and just copies off her notes. Her voice also makes my ears bleed.

Stop writing yourself poems Jane, they are cringey. Maybe if you had focused a little bit more on caring, they wouldn't have bashed you so hard. Learn from your mistakes and move on, treat the next cohort with more care and less dictatorship.

She is not the worst professor performance wise, but she has a weird obsession with power tripping, gate kipping and yelling. Wavering and volatile emotion. Your gradings is totally dependent on her mood and who you are. Go to show what university budget cut can do to us

Judging from the amounts of ratings Jane gives herself on this site and the amount of name callings she gives her students, it's fair to think some weird there is some narcissism tendencies going on

This professor is one of the worst professor at SFU. Aside from her unfair grading, no matter how much work you put in, she will not reward you with the grades you deserve. The topics in this class are not bad but she has gone out of her way to drop the class average. No teaching skills and is extremely rude and unprofessional. Avoid at all cost.

A true disasterclass on teaching a course. Students constantly correcting her mistakes in the middle of class. The actual lecture notes are skeleton notes and can only be filled in during class as she does not post her annotated slides or lecture recordings online. Tests happen to only focus on the lecture slides. Weird power trip too, seek help.

Feel bad for her? Did she feel bad when she acted like a utter tyrant in the class on and on about copy right and academic violation just for couple of pictures? Did she feel bad when she ignored us, ignored our homeworks, and treated us like we are invisible? Did she feel bad when she called us incompetent and lazy? Or for the inappropriate shirt?

The five star reviews for this professor are written by herself. Don't be fooled. Listen to the masses. Other professors at SFU don't receive backlash like this.

She doesn't give annotated notes and expects everyone to be in class. There is no exam cheat sheet, and the student wants to remember everything, even the code.

Worse than Randall Pyke, arguably worst in SFU math department

- superiority complex - power trip issues - stubborn - atrocious notes - not great at explaining - unfair tests - unreasonable marking deductions - SFU you're better than this, please fire her

Reviewing for the final really highlights how many mistakes she made scribbling out her notes on a projector. You have to copy notes so fast, you can't actually think about what you're writing, so you hope it makes sense later, and half the time, it doesn't, and of course there's no reference material or recording of her making these mistakes.

RUNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN

Unprofessional lecture notes and teaching (you don't know how to use beamer?) + she speaks perfect English yet she has a talent to make her words more than hard to understand + REDICULOUS TEST QUESTIONS COMPARE TO THE TOPICS AND WHAT SHE ACTUALLY DELIVERS IN CLASS. The class is not for you to shine prof, it's a place for students to learn.

Avoid. Lectures are somehow fast yet filled with stammers and errors. Notes only done on projector. Only provided notes are useless skeletons meant to be filled out in class. Bad handwriting and removes page from projector as soon as she's done writing. Berates students for taking pictures of projector slides.

Yep, the exam is 100% rote memorization. To the nitty gritty details. And if you get the nitty gritty details wrong, whole mark for the entire question is gone.

Qzs assig n final were fair but the midterm was brutal. Professor Jane, as a relatively new professor, you've received criticism, and I agree with some of it. I suggest revising your teaching strategies(note taking, lecture recds) I'm all in for tough exams, but please teach the material you expect us to know. We're paying a lot to be educated.

She might be a stellar researcher but she absolutely sux at teaching. SFU please do better and have capable personnel teach such an important course. I was made to lose interest and stop caring about this course very early on. TBH she might have been the worst I've had of all time.

Worst of all time indeed.

I wish there is "Unrespectable" in the categories above. She is so far the least respected professors I know by all of her students, and for valid reasons. Unsupportive is one thing, but she is actively sabotaging. Ugly, illegible notes. Gate keeping. Uneven marking. Random 2 minutes long pause. Rude. 100% of her effort is spent on her outfit.

She had the TAs stood over our shoulders, stared at us for almost the entire exam to send a message. None of us were even thinking of cheating. The exam was already hard, and we didn't need that kind of pressure.. Just don't take any course with her..

Frequently gets lost in her own notes and makes countless mistakes during lectures, greatly disrupting learning. Yells at students for taking picture of the projector during class. Refuses to post filled in lecture notes but lectures too fast for students to copy down the notes in class. Be prepared to memorize formulas. Power trip issues.

Completely uninvested in her student's. Doesn't post the automatically recorded lectures. Doesn't post filled in notes. Her handwriting is very bad with lots of mistakes. She yells at you if you take pictures, but if you ask sometimes it's fine? No practice midterm or final. No cheat sheets, and the midterm was mostly proofs with no warning. Avoid.

Does not test materials in lecture and homework, very messy writing, and does not upload lecture notes.

Jane is not a competent teacher at all. She is always late, doesn't allow students to take pictures of the slides, and just generally doesn't care for her students. Quizzes were difficult and unreasonable, with way too much content to memorize in this class, since no formula sheets were allowed. Clearly she's only here for research. Please avoid!

Exams and quizzes are unrelated to the textbook homework. Focus on her lecture slides and be prepared to memorize all the formulas and small details. If something doesn't make sense on the slides, there's a high chance she's made a mistake. Don't expect much from her; she's not capable of explaining well. Mahdi, her TA, is much better at teaching.

Just don't. Bad lectures slides. Tests are asking completely different things from what she mentioned in the lectures. She asked to memorize the MATLAB syntax the whole term, and then never asked a question about it on the final. The course is doable tho, but there are much better profs to take it with.

Do not take. Please listen to this plea.

There are two mid-terms in this class both worth 20% of your grade and a final worth 30% of your grade. You can go to lectures, but she literally teaches straight out of the textbook, copying it word for word. When she tries to explain it, it's all very confusing so you are basically stuck with teaching YouTube videos and online resources.

Probably the worst proffessor I've ever had. Barely goes over examples in lectures and only reads from the textbook. Tests are worth 70 percent of your entire grade and the review problem she gives for them sometimes don't even relate to the actual exam problems. I would recommend getting a tutor because she is incompetent in teaching.

Does not believe in posting notes or extra examples. She reads straight from the book and does not lecture. Her tests are brutal and the class average typically hovers around 70%. She also did not fully cover the curriculum we paid for, she started Chapter 8 on Wednesday of week 10. Get ready to read and study hard.

studied the course myself. this prof was horrible.

naw i cannot wtih this course