2.6
Quality3.6
Difficulty39%
Would Retake86
Reviews39%
Would Retake
86
Reviews
Rating DistributionOfficial
86 total ratings5
17
4
12
3
13
2
15
1
29
What Students Say
“Covers the board in Calculus”
FIN9783 - 2.0 rating“The topics he does teach aren't too hard”
ECON4000 - 1.0 ratingClass Info
Online Classes
100%
Attendance Mandatory
43%
Textbook Required
39%
Grade Predictor
Your expected effort level
Predicted Grade
A-
Grade Distribution
Common Tags
Rating Trend
Declining
-0.63 avg changeRatings by Course
REF4200
5.0
(1)ECO4000
3.5
(19)FIN312
3.0
(1)FINANCE
3.0
(1)RES4200
3.0
(1)Difficulty by Course
FINANCE
5.0
FIN47104750
5.0
FIN4750FIN4710
5.0
RES9776
4.5
FIN4750
4.5
Reviews (85)
his exams can be hard although he does grade on a curve. gives 6 long homeworks form the textbook. nice guy, but he's on the hard side.
I did well in my finance classes; This guy is sooooo boring... the first time in my life I find myself falling a sleep
i agree he is on the tough side. goes beyond the textbook and a lot of work. you did learn a lot though if you keep up. the lecture notes are very good and the review exams help a lot. very useful class helpful for future career and advanced courses.
Very boring-he has a monotone voice. Difficult to understand the accent. Difficult exams. Course itself is very difficult. And he does not clarify difficult concepts, and likes to make easy concepts hard to understand.
He walked out of class during the exams. Very helpful for advanced Finance courses. If you sleep in his class now, then you cannot sleep in the advanced courses!
very boring, doesn't offer enough examples in class....you may do well on the first two test, but look out for the FINAL, he makes it hard to even out the curve....didn't learn much from the class other than writing up formula sheets, not recommended
Do the hws, study the practice exams, come to class and u'll do fine. Yes it's a boring class, but u won't enjoy doing everything u need to do to be successful...so just suck it up. All that matters is how you do in comparison to everyone else.
Not exactly the best of teachers, but relatively clear compared to many others. Actually DO his homeworks and his practice tests and you will be fine. Those who gave him an extreme low rating probably just copied the homeworks and never read.
I liked the class, it was interesting, he is always prep, motivating, but do the hw yourself. It will be OK, if you read the book, and ask him if you don't understand something. At least I did not sleep during the class, and got a good grade
hard tests, hard final, not a big curve. Do not recommend.
terrible in clarification. Extremely boring. Difficult material. His practice exams do help.
The course indeed is difficult, but his practice will help you rehearse exams.He is kind and helpful when you have some difficulties. the final is killing me because the concepts are too difficult to understand.
if you want to get through, don't take his course.
he's boring and his lectures are so so in terms of clarity. if u can manage to pay attention in class, u should do alright. it's extremely important that u do the hw b/c it preps u for the tests. the tests are curved so ur rank determines ur grade. i hated his class. avoid him if u can. s
if you thinking of taking finance 3710 yao is not the prof. you want.Most of student remember the dream they have after class. not interesting teacher,very hard and very unhlpful. if you take him i hope you remember me in the dreams you are going to have in his class
I don't know why others find him difficult. All you must do to do well is pay attention in class, do HW, study, and do the practice midterm he hands out before each test. Everyone expects to just receive the grade that you want, if you put just a bit of effort, you'll end up with at least an A-.
Pros:Good practice exams, most HWs-answers provided online;2 reasonable midterms;grades based on rest of class. Cons:Final-45% of grade, very difficult(class avrg-22/30);3/4 of class asleep; speaks with minimum fin experience. Strict in grade weights since dropped me half a grade for ONE wrong question on the final exam. Advice-do well on final!
Do not recommend. He has a heavy accent, has difficulty clarifying concepts and gets annoyed when asked to reexplain the topic or question. Overall, bad professor.
It is literally impossible to stay awake in this class. I got an A in FIN 3000, 3610 and ECO 4000, yet I get a B+ in this class. What does that say? This guy just can't teach with his dumb powerpoint slides. He just got progressively worse and right before the final too. So, try to avoid if possible.
I worked hard in this class and earned a grade of B-. His exams are ok but his final is pretty hard. Avoid him if possible. He gives 2 midterms and 1 final and 6 homeworks. Study really hard before each exam especially the final. He also has a heavy ascent.
I don't know why most people here find him very bad. He isn't very good, but average he can be. One advice, study the slides b4 come to the class. One more, better take this class w/ eco 4000, then confusing part of calculation won't be that confusing anymore.
I BELIEVED HE CAN BE A VERY GOOD TEACHER IN THE ARMY BUT NOT IN OUR COLLEGE. HE DOESN'T SHOW COMFIDENCE TO THE STUDENT AND A GOOD TEACHER TREAT STUDENTS AS FRIENDS TO MADE THEM FEEL VERY COMFORTABLE IN CLASS.ANOTHER THING THAT I DON'T LIKE ABOUT HIM IS THAT HE ONLY LECTURE THE CLASS WITH THE PICTURES SLIDES ON THE BOARD WHICH I BELIEVE IS NOT ACCUR
He is really not that bad. If you want to learn, you must try and study alot. I got an A, so just do his practice tests and the HWs, review them a few times and you should do fine if you understand it.
nice professor but not too helpful at all. if u want to take him, make sure u need a lot of practice b4 exam. please dun sleep in his class. he will ask u some questions to wake u up.
tough teacher. tough class. covers more material than other sessions of fin 3710. however learned a lot and feel well-prepared for advanced courses. i paid tuition to learn, not just to have fun. got an A but with lots of hard work. highly recommended for someone serious about learning stuff instead of just getting by.
No Comments
well i got to say the course is tough, but professor yao didn't make it any easier. he doesn't teach. all he does is just reads off the slides. doesn't review hws... or ask stimulating questions. every lecture was a waste of my time since i don't learn. terrible class. got a B, but learned nothing at alll...
horrible; final was a killer. everyone except 2 students stayed for the entire 2 hrs of the final. he's voice is quite monotone with a slight accent.. reads of from slides, and always rushes them and not explaining anything.
Horrible professor. Heavy heavy accent - can't understand his lectures reads from slides. Test are very difficult and unclear. No intellectual stimulation. Stay away.
I do not know what these people are saying. Professor Yao is a very good professor and his exams are not hard at all. He gives a sample exam and the exam is very similar to the sample.Take him he is easier than many other professors.
Very easy. Gives sample exam. the sample is the same as the exam. At least an easy A-.
I have run into some bad prof and he is def on the top of the list. He simply cannot teach and he put 90% of the class to sleep. If you take him, be careful! His exams are easy tho as they are quite similar to the practice he gives. The book is also good, so you can self-teach da material.
STAY AWAY from him. The worst professor I ever had at Baruch after studding there for more than 7 years (BBA and MBA). He has no clue about what his talking about. His notes are full of errors and nobody understands his lectures. He jumps from one topic to the other and he is extremely unorganized. . He is a shame for Baruch.
She's very sweet, but can't teach at all. She reads from the slides, like we can't do it by ourselves. If you ask a question she points to the slide and reads again instead of explaining. I regret that did not waited for Mona in the second summer sem. I could teach myself w/o waisting $600 on Yao's lectures. Pointless.......
STAY AWAY FROM THIS GUY! DOES NOT KNOW HOW TO USE A FINANCIAL CALCULATOR YET EXPECTS YOU TO USE ONE FOR THE EXAM. IGNORES EMAILS. HE IS BY FAR THE WORST PROF I HAVE EXPERIENCED IN MY 2 YEARS IN THE MBA PROGRAM.
Very disapointed in this class. There were language issues persistent throughout the semester. Teaches in excel but you use a calculator for all exams. He does not know how to use a financial calcualtor which blows my mind. Was very defensive when questioned regarding the clarity of questions on the exam due language differences.
great professor. really knows his stuff. there are 2 midterm and a final. he canceled the 1 midterm. his midterm is 95% similar to his practice exam. but if u do better on the final, he will only count that grade. only uses excel worksheets and helps explain everything extremely clearly until everyone understands.GREAT GUY.loves his tomatoes HAHA
Though I was optimistic about this course during the first two weeks, the class immediately went downhill. The professor is very digressive and discusses advanced trading concepts before discussing the basics. For students with no trading background, his class was quite confusing. Most students failed the midterm. Avoid this professor!
One of the best professor. His midterm was really easy. I cant believe some people had trouble. You only needed to memorize one formula and the rest if you know High school algebra it was nothing difficult. Plus he gave a lot of hints during the exam. If you are interested in trading it is a MUST take class, if not perhaps wise to avoid.
GREAT PROFESSOR! IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN TRADING - YOU WILL NEVER GET BORED IN HIS CLASS! HE COMPLETELY CHANGED MY MIND ON HOW I ENVISIONED DAY TRADING BEFORE TAKING HIS CLASS. Exams are identical to practice tests. No textbook. Be prepared for excel work. Loves chickens & tomatoes lol
This is supposed to be the hardest class for finance and economics major. Professor Yao makes boring statistics interesting and relevant in the world of finance. EXCEL is required and homework is mostly EXCEL and is hard. Exams are fair with practices in advance. Prepare to spend lots of time. You will learn a lot if you do.
This class is great and interesting if you take it with professor Rui. He is eager to help you during his office hours and through email. Preferably to take with 3610 and 3710 since it will be very helpful to understand what he explains. NO textbook. Be prepared to spend time on homeworks, grades hws based on performance. Enjoy!
I hate algebra and did not do well for stat 2000. The class came out much better than what I expected because of the relevance to finance. It also forces me to learn EXCEL.
Cool dude.The coursework is heavily based on statistics(stdev, covariance, etc) and stuff he taught himself. I highly recommend taking him if you are into stock option pricing, trading. Midterms are easy, he covers everything the class before the test. A trader himself. The only reason people hate him is because they don't pay attention.
This professor is GREAT compare to other ECO4000 professors. No textbook, and HWs based on Excel. You learn a lot about Excel functions that are very helpful. Midterms are easy since he gives a similar practice exam and answer keys. He even "accidentally" gave out some answers on the exam. I bet you'll never find a professor this quality in ECO4000
tough class, but taught the way stats should be taught for a business/finance major. very practical. excel spreadsheet built from scratch every class using real yahoo finance data. i did not fully appreciate the class until when my bosses asks me to build spreadsheet about portfolio allocations and moving averages.
There many cons and pros to this prof. He uses his own documentation & real-world-live-finance examples nothing abstract. He is very fair and approachable though language can be an issue. His exams are easy if you're paying attention or extremely hard if you're not. Is difficult to fail his class but the probability that one could is very high.
The key is to pay close attention to the practice midterms and final. If you understand the pratice examples you should be fine.
Professor Yao is very nice and tries his best to explain the concepts but as an accounting major I had trouble. However, as long as you do the practice midterms you should be fine. Though he is cool, admittedly he puts me to sleep quite easily..
If you haven't taken Finance 3710 this class is difficult. Unable to enlist the help of tutors in the SACCs department. The material taught in class is more finance based, hence tutors in ECO4000 are unable to help.
Tough class. Forced me to pick up EXCEL, which turned out to be very useful. Finance oriented, unlike other sessions.
He is a nice guy, but by far the most confusing class I have ever taken. Covers the board in Calculus. Midterm took 4 hours to complete. Other tests were very very hard. Felt like I was taking a PHD level math course. Surprised with my grade at the end but each class left me confused and frustrated.
Very tough class! The exams was really hard. Will lower your GPA if you take him. Prof. gave high expectation.
Started off the semester saying you have a better chance at receiving a 0 then you do in receiving a 100. He teaches excel during class, NOT whats going to be on exams. He has a lot of chickens and talks about them during class. Pretty hard class, you will need to study very hard for exams.
One of the easier eco 4000 sections. He gives excel homeworks but they arent that hard and you can do them in groups. He also gives review/homeworks that are due on the day of exams. In total there are two midterms and a final, he counts your lowest graded midterm 15%. For the final be sure to know how to calculate tstat and pvalue.
Teaches the course like a Finance section - good if your major is FIN, useless if you're ECO. Fairly straight forward, 2 midterms and a final, gives review questions. But, he always comes late, under-dressed, can be very rude and just gives off impression that he simply doesn't care. Still better than other eco4000 sections though - go figure.
spring'16. curved class. 2 midterm 1 final. HWs & attendance also count toward grade. show effort in your hw &get full credit. midterm1(1hr) was a curveball & most failed. midterm2(1hr)was not bad,more similar to the hw. final(2hr) was like both midterm plus a bit of extra material. HW is not as similar to exams as u think, he is tricky. hard exams
I had Yao for Eco 4000 (A) and FIn 4710(A-), to be honest he doesn't teach much. The topics he does teach aren't too hard. Eco 4000 wasn't too different from Stat 2000 the way he was doing things. Fin 4710 he teaches the same stuff from Eco 4000 plus some bonds and bs portfolio measures. If you want to learn take a different professor.
Just like the majority of finance professors from Baruch he is very weak at teaching. Instead of teaching how to tackle real life eco/fin problems with the help of statistics he shows the class how they came up with the formulas most people leaned from Stat 2000 using math. On top of that, he is extremely disorganized.
He always does hw for you because there's no chance we can do it all ourselves. Not even sacc can help with his hw. Tests are pretty much what he gives you for homework but tricky, he can change things, if you know hw and practice test, you'll be ok. However, he gives the hardest final, nothing compared to practice or previous tests, don't take him
There are better professors out there where you'll get a better experience. Would not recommend because he is unorganized, and his teaching is confusing. His exams arent tough just he gives you the material a week before. Id pass from him
No textbook, only sloppy lecture notes. No blackboard, only gmail groups. Does not explain class concepts well; major problem as there is no textbook. MIdterm will be like sample midterm, with numbers changed. Final will be like sample, with numbers changed. He will review these before test. He didnt finish Final review, bc he came to class late.
Difficult class, but AMAZING professor. There is no textbook and his notes are hand-written, but his approach to teaching is amazing. I've never had a professor make math so intuitive and accessible. Go to class. He didn't deduct points from my grade for missing 50% of classes despite collecting sign-in sheets. Corrects you/gives ansrs during tests
No textbook, lecture only. Except class notes are poorly hand written and projected on a screen. Completely unorganized. Doesnt use blackboard, but instead "google forums." Gives you a sample midterm and answer similar to real midterm. Final he gave a sample final, but didn't give answers. Warning: Do not take, terrible at teaching. Unfunny jokes.
One of the worst professors I've had. Granted, Econometrics is a difficult class, but there is a way to teach difficult classes. Prof. Rui is not a teacher, and should not teach. Prof. Rui is very smart and intelligent, but not capable of teaching students. Instead of solving problems on his own, he should engage the class and help us comprehend.
Rui is a great professor. I agree that his class is hard but I personally learned a lot in his class. What I noticed Baruch students like to complain and take the easiest class possible and no learn anything. Also, I really liked that he did not use testbanks and many those fake students with high GPA failed.
Just AVOID at all costs. FIN 4710 is called Investment Analysis, but all he talks about is trading. It is basically teaching Spanish in an English class. He gave midterm 1 week before the final. He got lazy, did not grade the midterm on time and decided not to give the final at all! He is simply lazy and has no attributes a good teacher should have
Had him for both ECO4000 and FIN4750, easily the hardest classes I've ever taken at Baruch. Really can't overstate the difficulty level of the material. If you have a very good grasp of pre-requisite statistics material, then you will probly do well. If you are not looking for a very real challenge, avoid.
The only thing I was graded on is a mid and final and class presentation. He wants his paper done by hand with long calculations. The thing is he teaches his class in excel but then give paper to solve manually. No extra credit, if you f up the mid most likely you will fail. do not take if you love your gpa as this class will bring it down.
LISTEN: Doesn't follow a textbook. Mandatory group project, doesn't use blackboard but Google Drive to post everything. MUST print his exams out and handwrite ALL exams and homeworks and take pictures to send it to him. He uses his free time making up original exam questions, and you wont find any of his questions online. NOT AN EASY CLASS!
There's no textbook. He writes notes but doesn't upload them so either rewatch zoom or take ur own notes. 2 midterms 1 final. theres 3 hw's but hw due before exam so u don't know right answer. No reviews for exams, his "review" q's in class are not helpful for exam. look over previous years exams. horrible teaching style in all 4 years at baruch
This course is difficult but if you are able to do good on exams you will get a passing grade. He takes a long time to grade but homework is pretty easy .Hes not accessible outside of class which was unfortunate. The 3 midterms were harder than final. Could there be a better choice to take ? probably but he isnt the worst and is quite nice.
Overall he is a decent and understanding person but his ways of teaching are very confusing and disorganized. Class is mostly based on just exams which are short answer. I ended up getting decent grades but I think this class is not worth the stress. Exams are hard.
This class says it's an Option class but it really isn't. It's an Option PRICING class where you have to do a ton of calculus and formula heavy equations to solve the problems. Didn't learn a thing about options which is disappointing. Exams are hard for no reason and extremely difficult to pass this class. I should have read the previous reviews:(
If you are interested in Finance, you will learn from professor Yao how financial markets work and understand changes in trade, monetary and fiscal policies and laws. He engaged the students in discussions of interest rate policies of the Federal Reserve System. At the end you will appreciate having Dr. Yao as your professor.
Im not sure why his rating is so low here. yes his tests can be difficult but he curves like an absolute beast and no one gets below a B-. I'm kinda confused by this page tbh
I was struggling with my attendance and he was very accomodating, helped me even though attendance is mandatory. This semester he let us correct our tests after we submitted them when we didn't do well. Cool man
Gave the hardest midterm I have ever taken but curved by 17 points after, so there's that. Kind of apathetic at times, can be slow responding to emails. Definitely approachable tho.... This is not a walk in the park
Took both his Saturday classes. Test assigned Friday night due Saturday before class for both. No PowerPoints, review very similar to tests. The grade is based on homework, midterm, and final. Everything has to be submitted through email. No bb. Has group presentation for 4710. more of the pricing of an option than what they list on Cunyfirst.
If I could give this "professor" a 0, I would. AVOID AT ALL COSTS. Does not follow his outdated syllabus and does not care about students.
Terrible professor. Had to teach myself in order to even understand the topics
He is condescending and uses complex equations so you will not do as good on the tests from the main professor. Isn't a tutor suppose to help us? He also never guides us to to the answer or even says if it's right or wrong. Some people walked out of his class
You learn a lot about how to analyze markets. The tests are literally the HWs for the online format with a change of short/long. If you pay attention during the exam reviews, you should do fine. (Over half the class got a 90+ on the midterm) The exams are def hard, they are just made a lot easier because he reviews the same type of question before.
still in this class, but he's very condescending. two hw assignments, two midterms, one final. he used my midterm as an "example" to grade during the class and spoke of it as though I didn't know what I was doing. he kept saying "oops" + took points off for "not knowing where my calculations came from" although i labeled everything clearly
Professor Yao is the absolute worst professor I have ever had in my entire school career. He is extremely condescending and not understanding whatsoever. He purposely makes the exams extremely hard to ensure that his students don't do well. His teaching style is atrocious and his lectures are so hard to follow. AVOID HIM AT ALL COSTS!!!
Class Info
Online Classes
100%
Attendance Mandatory
43%
Textbook Required
39%
Grade Predictor
Your expected effort level
Predicted Grade
A-
Grade Distribution
Common Tags
Rating Trend
Declining
-0.63 avg changeRatings by Course
REF4200
5.0
(1)ECO4000
3.5
(19)FIN312
3.0
(1)FINANCE
3.0
(1)RES4200
3.0
(1)Difficulty by Course
FINANCE
5.0
FIN47104750
5.0
FIN4750FIN4710
5.0
RES9776
4.5
FIN4750
4.5