He is the worst teacher I have ever met. Before him, I thought all the American professors are friendly, helpful and experienced in the teaching field, but he is absolutely not. He doesn't teach real analysis and he doesn't follow what he said.

He is the worst professor i have ever met in this country.

Worst teacher I have ever had in my life (which is saying a lot). He is extremely unprepared for lectures. He has countless mistakes on every lecture slide that makes it nearly impossible to follow According to him, if you "stare at the notes long enough" they will make sense. He is very disorganized when it comes to assignments and deadlines.

Try to take Math 415 instead. This used to be a good course then they revamped it. Professor sowers is an ok professor during lectures but gets off topic a lot. Pop quizzes weekly and necessary to go. Biggest issue was he would lecture on 10 subjects, test you on 2/3 but wouldn't give you support to succeed (no practice problems or book problems)

Really rude and incredibly condescending. Huge superiority complex, and does not care about anyone's feelings or about treating people with basic human kindness. Very disorganized and spacey as well.

He made almost no preparation for this class and he paid no effort in slides and lecture recording. If you want to actually understand the materials, you have to self-study on google or ask TA. All he does is providing the topics.

This professor does not prepare for his class. In his class materials for deep learning. "backprop" becomes derivatives, "RNN" takes a plan-observer system, which is wield in deep learning.

The lectures make 0 sense and do not help. You will have to learn everything on your own and spend time on going to tutoring with the TA's that actually help you learn. The TA's will be your best friend so make sure you do that. Although the professor can be funny, he is useless for the information and does not help you understand.

I have never before seen a professor who cares so little for his students. His lectures, as mentioned before, are a complete mess. Riddled with errors and taught in a manner that makes most young students unable to understand even the easiest of concepts without talking having to search it up themselves. Please do not ever go to Richard Sowers ever

The homework is absolutely horrid and is nothing like the exams. The discussions are also horrid with the questions being very confusing. The TAs are nice and better teachers than the professor himself.

This guy just cannot teach. He seems like a decent person, but that does not make up for the abysmal lectures that use notation completely irrelevant to the class, and does not translate at all to the homework or discussion questions which are nonsensical themselves just like the lectures. Just read the textbook and you'll do okay

Not a great professor by any means. He spends all of his time going over proofs and using notation that I have never seen before. His slides are also full of mistakes and always need to be pointed out by the students. Just for reference, on the first day of lecture, there were more than 200 students in attendance. Now only about 30 show up.

I absolutely hated my experience with Richard Sowers. He didn't know how to teach, notes always had mistakes, and when he corrected the notes they were still very confusing. I learned more by skipping lecture.

“What's your favorite number?”

His lectures have less than 10% of attendance. You can see how horrible his lectures are.

The man cannot teach. Stopped going to lecture and started to understand the material much better. Avoid.

Terrible professor. Looked like he was proud of his teaching which was in fact a complete mess. The lectures were disorganized and he made tons of mistakes literally every single class. The workload was reasonable though. If you really wanted to learn DL, avoid him at all cost

He does not teach the class well, lecture slides are filled with errors and overly rigorous proofs. Avoid him if possible and if not don't feel bad about skipping lecture and reading the textbook/watching videos instead.

Professor Sowers is easily the worst teacher I've ever had. He is not a good lecturer, and does not prepare students for exam content at all. He does not post material that we are supposed to get and that other professors post (such as practice exams, exam solutions after the exam is out). He does not answer student's questions well.

His slides are extremely useless with unnecessary complex notations and many mistakes, making it impossible to understand anything. He doesn't properly answer any questions. He only teaches what he feels like and doesn't cover topics on the midterm. Going to his class made me feel stupid and I felt like I would fail (I self studied the course).

This was the worse professor I've ever had, it was like he had never opened a calc textbook in his life. His lecture slides were riddled with mistakes. He was rude to students who had genuine questions, and he takes pride in wanting students to fail. Do not under any circumstances take his class.

Terrible teacher who has slides with excessively redundant proofs full of mistakes and confusing substituted values which nobody understands at all. He can not explain concepts in an approachable and coherent manner. NEVER TAKE HIS COURSE EVER

This was one of the worst professors ive ever had. The lecture slides had so many mistakes and he rarely did a problem in class, mostly he just put the answer up on the screen and moved past it so fast we could not recollect what he was talking about. he also forgot to post topics for the exam. you have to self study with no idea of whats on tests.

Slides were frequently incorrect, explanations were absurdly complex for the level of the class (using real analysis terms for calc 3 topics like continuity). To put into perspective how bad his lectures were, at the beginning of the semester there were ~300 people in lecture, by the end it was near 30..

Hes really hot

The lectures were not great..

His lectures used overly complex notation and commonly contained mistakes. His lectures were also overly focused on proofs and too little time was spent actually explaining information pertinent for homework and/or tests. Sometimes a lecture on certain topics left me even more confused. Self-study is your friend.

Honestly, he is a good person. However, teaching is not his thing. Lectures were absolutely horrendous. I came out with negative knowledge. I genuinely feel like if he picked up his slides and taught the topics that would appear on the test and homework, he would be amazing. But please, if you do not plan on self studying, do something else.

Going to lectures was a waste of time. Slides made simple concepts seem like rocket science with complex notation. Not a single practice problem was done during lectures. All he did was read off the slides that had countless errors. He often struggled to answer questions and it seemed like he didn't knew what he was talking about.

Richard Sowers must be removed from the University. He can barely teach, he has soooo many mistakes on his slides, and is very disorganized when it comes to giving us any information on grades or exams. He is the worst professor I have ever had, DO NOT EVER TAKE.

I don't dislike him as a person, but his lectures are just plain useless. They almost never contain any useful information on how to actually apply things and only focus on such high level derivations and confusing examples that I never know what I actually need to do until I ask a TA or look through practice solutions

This is probably the worst educator I've ever had the displeasure of having. Avoid his class at all costs. He doesn't care for his students at all, and is an absolutely tragic lecturer. DO NOT TAKE HIS CLASS.

Richard Sowers is easily by far the worst teacher I've ever had the displeasure of having. His slides are absolutely abysmal with mistakes all over and it's common to spend the entire lecture watching him attempt to decipher his own jumbled mess. He values proofs over his own students. If you have questions you'll likely get shamed. Genuinely awful

Very bad, very unhelpful, never again. If you get Sowers never go to his lecture. Just self-study the material via textbook and YouTube. You are better off that way so you don't get confused during his lecture. Good luck, you'll probably need it!

Firstly, I wanted to say that I learn best from a teacher in lecture. Unfortunately, Richard Sowers did not give me this chance. I was forced to self study and my grade reflects it. I have never gotten a C in a math class and was devastated. I hope the university fires this man and contacts other universities to prevent him from teaching again.

His slides are incredibly hard to understand and never are correct. I had to teach myself the material of this course due to his poor teaching. I recommend not choosing this professor if you get the chance. He honestly should not be teaching.

Where do I begin? This professor is extremely unorganized, never prepared for lecture, and oblivious to the empty classrooms he lectures to. The only thing he has managed to stay consistent in is making errors in his slideshows. Nothing he covers prepares you for the exams, which are mainly multiple choice. Be prepared to become your own teacher!

This guy was an absolute mess as a lecturer. His slides were littered with errors, which would get brushed over and forgotten. No accountability. Just a creation of constant confusion where you have to dig yourself out of a hole every week. I can confirm that it wasn't a “me” problem as my entire study group has encountered the same issues.

He is unresponsive to students, often ignoring emails or brushing off questions. His lectures include humor but are proof-heavy and not exam-relevant. There are frequent errors on slideshow. Sometimes took over 30 min to set up slideshow in classroom. It's often more helpful to read the textbook or self-learn the material.

You're better off self-teaching than listening to Dr. Sowers. Genuinely the worst math teacher I've ever had. His lectures are really confusing and he doesn't problem solve. I got away with teaching myself all the material, but I think relative to the homework, tests are easy though, but consistent across all calc sections, so get someone else.

Incorrect slides and poor instruction. Do not take him unless you want to learn that his favorite number is 5.

After the first few lectures, I switched to a different professor, who was 5x better. When asked any questions, he typically gave a non-answer. He read off his slides (which had multiple errors), and he just seemed more interested in discussing things outside of Calculus 3. He was the strictest of the calculus teachers. Be prepared to self-study

Doesn't know how to teach well at all, every lecture is basically a powerpoint read sometimes full of mistakes. Pretty much everyone in the class was forced to self-lecture themselves. He doesn't care for his students very much as well, releasing final review worksheets literally only up to 2 days before the final. Avoid him if you can.

TERRIBLE TEACHER.

Expect to learn by yourself

Technically, he's a good person but terribly bad at teaching. I had to teach myself and his lectures did not help at all. Do not attend his lectures, go through the textbook, and go to office hours as soon as you have problems. The tests are not hard (only basic stuff and maybe one tricky question). So if you work hard enough you'll be fine.

Professor Sowers seems like a good person. I can't say the same for his teaching abilities. He passed slides like there was no tomorrow, so you couldn't even digest the 20 triple integral proof you were still trying to decipher. He constantly had mistakes on slides & would teach the simplest topics in convoluted ways. I self studied Calc 3.

Professor Sowers was, to put in simple terms, awful. I'm not sure why he's teaching Calc 3; he makes every simple concept incomprehensible. His slides were ridden with erroors and he ignores students' emails. I stopped going after a week and went to Heller instead. Much better experience on that end...read the textbook and you will succeed.

The average grade of Sowers is C+, he literally did no curve. And he teaches bad. Many errors in his PowerPoint.

Very bad teaching skills. Powerpoint is wrong most of the times

Bad at teaching and no curve at the end of the semester. Hilarious.

Take this guy if you genuinely want to fail in a math class or smthn. I have never once in my life struggled with math. However, even though calc is very easy, this guy managed to make it seem like I was rolling around in hot glass shards and then proceeded to Waterboard me with no curve and a final which 100% made ppl cry.

Avoid at all costs

Bad at teaching Unable to answer questions correctly

Unable to give decent lectures

Slides always cantain wrong concept or calculations

This guy really does not wish you to learn anything in lectures

He really wants you to fail

He never did one lecture correctly

Seems like a good dude but could not teach to save his life. Got to say he does have some jokes tho.

I'd rather bash my head in with a textbook than go to another one of his lectures

There's nothing I'd rather do less than go to one of his lectures again

This dude had a final class average of 77% and barely gave us a 1% curve even though all his exams implied that there'd be a curve. If you see his name next to any of your classes just run the other way...

After only ONE semester of teaching calc 3, professor Sowers' rating dropped from a 2.8 to a 1.5. You will learn nothing from the lectures. Be prepared to get a C, even if you have A+'s in Calc 1 and 2 previously, which is what happened to me. Avoid at all costs.

He seems like a nice dude but is just an awful lecturer. It was stated after every exam that a 33/40 was in the A range grade for his class, but what do you know we are slapped in the face with only a 1% curve of our final grade. He may as well of just spit in all of our faces and gave no curve. BTW so many people failed that final it was comical.

horrible. just horrible. promised so much like extra credit, practice tests, a curve and delivered on absolutely nothing.

His slides all had errors in them. He made simple concepts seem complicated. Sowers didn't cover the material needed to be able to do the homework and exams. He didn't follow up on the grade ranges for his tests. Please run if you're in his section. Be prepared to self study and watch YouTube videos on every topic. He also went on a lot of tangents

Useless lectures, rude replies to emails

did not teach

Lectures have no relevance to the homework or quizzes. Teaches the proofs of equations instead of the actual content we need to understand to succeed in exams. Posted misleading grades on canvas all semester by not implementing the grading scale on the syllabus until after the final exam, blindsiding students with lower grades than they expected.

Any questions I would ask him he would get wrong, replied to all of 1 email from me over the whole semester. He promised a curve and didn't give one. He also gave half as much extra credit and had harder grading policies on the homework that other sections did. He wouldn't post practice test material until right before a test. Horrible lectures.

Very confusing, I DO NOT recommend this professor to anyone who wants to pass. By far the worst explainer and lecturer that I have taken at UIUC

Homework and discussion worksheets often cover material not yet taught, making discussions unproductive. Professor Sowers' lecture notes are full of errors and difficult to follow. He covers unnecessary content while poorly explaining exam topics, forcing me to rely on the textbook. I have gained little from his lectures.

He really want you to fail. Dont believe a sigle word he said in class.

The worst instructor I had met. Do not take any his course. I took his IE 525 course.

This is for IE 525. The content is hard but is not impossible to learn. However, the professor want to explain everything in one take, which make it even harder to understand. Better prepare textbook for self-learning and ready for costing huge amount of time since the content is abstract.

four midterms with 0 drops, each with a total point of 40 only which is really easy to fumble. fk

Bad lecturer. He doesn't write anything on his iPad or the board. He makes slides and just walks through them which is very hard to follow. Every lecture slideshow had mistakes. One day he couldn't make it to the lecture and we had a substitute professor Heller. And that was the only lecture that I understood.

Be ready to learn everything on your own because this professor is the goat of being useless. You will skip all lectures after the first two weeks because you learn nothing either way. I got an F and D- on the 1st and 3rd midterms, D- on the final, skipped half my discussions but still passed. Just have to lock in for a few days and you'll be fine.

Reviews keep on getting deleted, this fact should speak for itself. Professor was ill-prepared for every lecture. Wrong notes; he sometimes straight up didn't know the material. Promised curves and extra credit which were never implemented. No homework drops. Doubt he's allowed anywhere near the math department again, but if he is DO NOT take.

Horrible professor, lowest average GPA in Calc 3 of all time in 241 history (2.4 average GPA) which was almost 0.5 a standard deviation from the historic mean. He taught one class, and that class had majority of its grades being B, B-, and lower (lowest of all time). Never had error-free slides, never taught anything effectively and confused us.

Has to be by far the worst professors I've ever had. He simply cannot teach, let alone make a lesson slide show with less than 5 errors on it. The only emails you'll get is of him sending the updated slides cause he messed them up. Stopped going to class after he couldn't explain dot product in the 2nd lecture. Read the textbook to pass exams

Garbage professor, garbage human. Could not teach to save his life. Like others spoke, his lectures were riddled with errors, and wasn't able to explain really any concept. It was easier just to read the textbook or go to another professor to learn. I doubt he's allowed to teach MATH 241 again, but I will never take another course taught by him.