2.4
Quality4.2
Difficulty31%
Would Retake123
Reviews31%
Would Retake
123
Reviews
Rating DistributionOfficial
5
24
4
10
3
14
2
19
1
56
What Students Say
“Rao is SO CONFUSING in lecture”
CS70 - 2.0 rating“A scatter-brained lecturer”
CS70 - 2.0 ratingClass Info
Online Classes
100%
Attendance Mandatory
4%
Textbook Required
19%
Grade Predictor
Your expected effort level
Predicted Grade
A-
Grade Distribution
Common Tags
Rating Trend
Declining
-0.40 avg changeRatings by Course
CS102
5.0
(1)CS7S0
4.0
(1)CS270
3.8
(4)CS70
2.4
(85)CS170
2.2
(12)Difficulty by Course
CS70
4.4
CS170
4.2
CS270
4.0
CS61A
3.9
CS7S0
3.0
Reviews (123)
Of all my 4 lecturers this year, Rao is by far the most engaging. He integrates occasional jokes into his talking, to which many people seem to take well. Sometimes he fails to explain the connections a particular topic has, and other times he simply assumes we know too much, but overall great prof.
Brilliant Professor. Follows the textbook closely. Helpful in Office Hoursl
Lectures jumped all over the place. He simply could not explain a proof clearly, which is a big problem in a proof-based course.
Not a particularly good lecturer. Seemed confused about how Scheme worked. Often corrected by Harvey. I would recommend webcasting Harvey's old lectures instead of attending lecture.
Co-taught CS61A with Harvey, but I really wish Rao didn't. Many times he was confused about how something worked and Harvey (sitting in the class) would have to correct him. Very dull and boring lecturer in general, and I ended up watching Harvey's old lectures.
Wasn't very clear at the start of the year, but got better as the year went on. Was never very sure about the material he was teaching, which made lectures hard to understand.
He taught 61A with Brian Harvey, although it would have been better if he didn't in my opinion. While I'm sure he's a good teacher in whatever subject he originally taught, he teach the 61A material effectively and when he taught I would have to go and watch Harvey's old web-casted lectures.
Why this man was allowed to teach a class, I will never know. He had no idea what he was talking about (Harvey always corrected him), and attendance dropped dramatically once he started lecturing. He was completely useless and made the class much more confusing than it had to be.
Great Prof. A little off in lecture but so helpful in office hours
Great guy. Funny and help. Maybe a little confusing in lecture though
Great instructor - makes me want to learn more theory. Infectious enthusiasm, and cool atitude. hard to follow but the material itself was pretty hard.
A scatter-brained lecturer. He is smart but he seems to have a difficult time conveying his thought process and concepts to the class. He will jump around a lot during his math proofs. He will skip steps, goes too fast during critical proofs, or mentally compute/assume things without explaining to us. Class structure is very disorganized, chaotic.
Rao is a poor lecturer - he can't seem to clearly explain things. He trails off easily and is extremely hard to follow in the first place. Basically, he is all over the place during his proofs and explanations, sometimes skipping essential details altogether. For a class that is so theory-heavy, it sucks a lot to have such a bad instructor.
This is a difficult course and Rao is not a good professor to teach it. He's scattered in his lectures, goes way too fast through the slides, and he assumes that you know various math concepts before starting the course. If you're comfortable with solving math proofs, you'll do well in this class. If not, take it with another professor if you can.
Satish is amazing, extremely helpful and devoted and has an awesome personality
Rao's a nice guy, can be humorous & chill. He isn't the greatest instructor though. His lectures lack so much clarity. He has typos and makes mistakes while lecturing/explaining things - confusing. He's nice and willing to help if you go to his office hours though. But overall do not recommend for a course like this. You need a good clear teacher.
Rao is SO CONFUSING in lecture!! He is all over the place and never coherently finishes any of his sentences when he talks. He just is just way too hard to follow. Concepts like these need clear instruction from the teacher!!
Love him! Really good at explaining concepts. Has a unique lecturing style (as in makes a lot of stupid jokes) but that helped me not get bored. One of the best math/science professors there is.
Really great. Really caring.
The worst class I've ever taken at this school so far. Not that I don't find the topic interesting, but it's so hard to keep up when the lectures are so horrible. Rao is very knowledgeable of the content, but terrible at teaching it. I hate asking for help, so I never went to office hours, and I was confused the entire semester as a result.
Rao was genuinely a good person. He was incredibly good at explaining concepts at office hours but his lectures were a little scattered. It was a must to read through the course notes and do a lot of practice just to get lecture to make sense to me. Overall he coherently explained the material (once it already made some sense) and he graded fair.
Rao explains concepts very well and gives very good examples to strength understanding. Tests are hard but reasonable. Offers test-only option which relieves the stress of the course. Go to lecture, go to discussion, skim through homework, and do some practice exams, and you'll do well.
I've taken both 70 and 270 with him and I've also TAed for him. He's really a sweetheart that deeply cares about his students and being fair. He's a little scatterbrained but ask him questions if you're unclear about something---you'll understand more and he'll slow down. Also, read the notes! (For 70)
It is interesting how UC Berkeley has such accredited professors however they are clearly not known for their teaching experience. Professor Rao is a nice, caring and smart but notoriously bad teacher teaching very hard material. In a hard class like this precision in speech is important, which Professor Rao himself confesses to be horrible at.
Satish is pretty nice and approachable but his lectures are indeed really scattered. The curve is nice though
Nice guy, but lectures are sometimes unclear (he skips a few important steps in math proofs). So, you'll probably have to spend extra time reading the course notes. That being said, he is really nice and somewhat helpful during OH. Exams for this class are tough, but he ends up curving nicely. HW was tough, but 80%+full credit was nice.
One of my favorite professors, because he genuinely cares about his students. I learned discrete math really deeply and it prepared me well for cs170. Really glad I got to take a class from someone that is brilliant but also compassionate
Good attitude, but painfully awkward jokes and awful at teaching. It's obvious that Rao gives lecture on the fly by literally reading every word off of the slides and getting lost during his own lectures. Teaching is his last priority, so if you take it with Rao don't even go to lecture and just read Sinho/Alvin's notes.
I took CS70 over the summer, but the lecturers were quite bad so I watched Rao's webcasts on double speed to learn the material. His lectures were quite funny (terrible jokes but he's a cool guy so it was funny). They were a little scattered and fast for some students, but I really enjoyed them. Would def take a class with him in the future!
A genuinely nice guy and you can tell he is a genius, but if you are not on his level don't expect to understand a single thing he explains. He is a horrible lecturer who doesn't know how to put what he knows into words, and assumes everyone knows everything. Honestly he should just focus on research and give up teaching.
He is really bad at giving lectures. Really smart guy.
Very poor lecturer. You can tell he is trying and has read the literature, but the way he speaks and delivers material is disjointed and confusing. Also was not amazing at writing test questions. He usually did a pretty good job, but when he made mistakes or wrote poorly worded questions, he refused to allow other valid answers.
Terrible Lecturer, amazing in office hours. You can read others' opinions on his lecturing, but the few times I did go to office hours - he's amazing. If you have him and are struggling, go to his office hours. He's great when he's not on the podium.
Very bad lecturer. Usually did not get anything out of lecture. He reads off of his 100+ slides at a rapid pace. However, I can tell that he cares about his students and want us to succeed.
Horrible lecturer. Did not understand a thing. If you have the choice, avoid taking a class with Rao at Berkeley.
Rao is likely the worse professor at UC Berkeley. I was expecting way more quality, especially since this Cal is regarded as one of the top institutions in computer science. He might be smart, but he does not know how to teach. Students seem to rely mostly on notes/textbook to survive. He relies on cheese jokes to gain some respect.
Best CS professor at Cal. Took both CS 70 and CS 170 with him. His lectures are very clear so that textbook is not needed. Exams are fair. Would probably take every course Rao teaches in the future!
The more he tries to explain something the more confusing it gets. Just read the textbook instead.
Terrible professor who doesn't understand student issues. Non sympathetic and causes high levels of emotional distress. I strongly recommend you avoid this professor at all cost, for he isn't a good lecturer, nor does he provide any growth to your academic career.
fall20 He may be knowledgable as a person, but a horrible lecturer. Not only that, but he's not willing to listen to students and to any inconvenience or unfair policies, his answer is "just master the subject." I suggest students to teach themselves all discrete math before taking him. I had to use youtube and other universities' notes to study.
Nice and caring guy, but reuses Sahai's infamous hw's or writes his own which are filled with typos and missing needed info to answer them (doesnt update pdf). Gives exams with reused true/false questions since hes lazy. Worst lecturer of all time (literally reads from the slides), the best advice I can give to anyone is avoid him at all costs.
if you take a class with him after reading these or talking to anyone who took a class with him, your loss of mental well-being and grades, as well as dislike for the subject is only your own fault
In my experience he's pretty unremarkable, not great but not awful either.
His lectures were extremely confusing, halfway through the class I gave up and just read the text on my own. He fails at reading the slides for a solid amount of lecture time. His grading policies are extremely unclear and the class seems extremely poorly ran. His only response is "master the material". Which isn't very helpful. Avoid at all costs.
The class started out not too bad, lectures aren't helpful but he was at least entertaining in a weird way. The homework was long, difficult, and often had typos/mistakes in the questions. On top of the difficult content, prof was unhelpful and vague, esp with logistical questions about grading or the class.
Professor Rao seems like a nice person, but personally, I had trouble with the pacing of the class. The course was really fast-paced for me, homework took 10+ hours each week, and exam averages were 50%. Lectures seem like a hit or miss for some people, but reading/understanding the class notes is crucial if you want to pass the class.
Not the best lecturer, but definitely one of the most caring and compassionate professors I've had at Cal. He was flexible with course policies. Notes are almost more important than the lectures, and exams are rather difficult though.
Exams and homework filled with typos, very vague grading policies. You knew how you were performing relative to the mean on exams, but he gave no estimate of where that put you grade-wise. Discussions were not recorded and varied heavily, so it was luck of the draw for the quality of discussion, as you could not watch others. Terrible course.
Fall 2020: Doable, but make sure you have a solid background in discrete math or a lot of time to devote/an easy schedule. Class is graded on a curve so your performance is based on your standard deviation from the class mean/z-score. I ended up spending 6+ hrs/week aside from lectures, but some people who got higher grades spent a lot more.
This man should not be allowed to be a Professor, he does not know how to teach. His "lectures" consist of quickly reading off badly formatted slides--completely lazy and useless. The exams are absurdly long, and riddled with typos and errors. Avoid this Professor if possible, because it's probably a much more rewarding class with someone else.
I was ROBBED of an A- when he refused to give me an A- when clearly, I am at the border of an A-. I wish he gave some compensation for the Zoom issues that happened during the exams. He refuses to give out the grading bins so that students can ensure that grades are calculated correctly and fairly. This class is the hardest one I have ever taken.
Very unclear lectures, not easy to follow on the already hard material
This class is ridiculously hard and has unclear grading policies. Homeworks are very long (i spent 10+ hours a week) meanwhile they won't even grade every question. Rao's lectures are not helpful
His lectures can be confusing, but that's because he explores difficult problems that you have to look back at and think about. I found the content of his lectures extremely interesting, although his presentation was a bit dry. Some of the homework questions were ridiculously hard, but most were a good level of challenging and interesting.
CS70 is the hardest class I have taken so far. Professor Rao's lectures are very confusing if you do not have a baseline understanding of the material, but are helpful if you do. Personally, they were the most useful to me after doing the discussions and homeworks. He is a funny and nice person, and I can personally imitate his woohoo quite well.
Very nice person but lectures are fast and rely too much on (kinda confusing) slides. Lecture content similar to the notes. Read notes before coming to lecture. Accessible in OH and Piazza. Exams w/ many short answers & 50% averages. I enjoyed the short answer format because you don't have to come up with algorithms and whatnot unlike other profs.
This class was hard AF. Prof Rao's lectures and notes were useful for understanding the material.
Hard class and content. Rao is caring tho. Bumped up my grade to the next bin because I was so close��. A pretty decent guy in my book.
Rao is legit one of the best professors at Cal. Nice guy, very accommodating, brilliant at explaining things. CS70 is a hard class but Rao really does right by it.
Pros: - Lenient and cool guy - Curved (everyone bombs the tests) Cons: - class has very little support and it doesn't feel like there are resources for your success - Homework's are extremely difficult - Discussions are not recorded - Solutions for tests are not clear - Lectures are 100% useless and terrible
CS70 was by far the most challenging class I've ever taken at Berkeley. The spring 2022 final was absolutely atrocious and significantly harder than previous years. Even with attending both discussions, both CSM sections, both lectures, and office hours 5 days a week spending 10-15 hours on homework per week, barely any of it helped for the final.
I've never had a professor explain things more poorly than professor rao. Watching one 90 minute recording of his videos takes me well over 3 hours because he explains things so horribly and glosses over everything. I constantly find myself watching youtube videos to find proper explanations. At least he is funny.
Prior to the class, a student told me, "don't waste your time going to Rao's lectures." Now, I can see why. His slides look like a bunch of random facts, and all he does is read them without any adequate explanation. Too bad for you if you aren't a math-cracked kid. Miserable but Indian gurus from YouTube will be your best friends for the semester.
He has no idea how to present the content of the class. Horrible at teaching, ridiculous exams, and his TAs know nothing about the content. Worst professor in CS department
CS70 is a tough but Rao is horrendous (data: massive # poor reviews cf to other UCB CS70 profs) - error laden slides / mumbles explanations / exams are heavily trick questions / hw impossible and encourages cheating. Worst aspect: uses the classic "you need to learn the material" to obfuscate his lack of motivation and clarity in teaching.
Although Prof. Rao's lecture is fast-paced, I really like his teaching style. His lecture is so hard that you have to read notes multiple times. If you can understand ALL concepts in his lecture slide, you are able to solve most exam-level questions. Overall a very positive experience.
Horrible, definitely need a tutor for this class. Worst professor Ive had.
Horrible lectures...he basically just reads slides off the screen and is quite boring. I'm glad he only taught discrete math instead of probability or I would suffer more.
You either love him or you hate him. I certainly loved his teaching style and his sense of humour.
Excellent professor, wonderful lectures, jokes can vary, but gets the essence of the content across quite well.
Seemed like a chill dude. Lectured heavily off slides. Cracked jokes and didn't put in a ton of effort. Wasn't the best explainer and wasn't very engaging. Made concepts more challenging than they needed to be. Probably a nice person but was definitely phoning it in.
I only went to the first 4 lectures or so and a few more online but I liked his teaching style. Also the exams were fun, loved doing the proofs. The midterm should've had more time because it was a race. The final was well paced. The >73% equals full credit for HW is the best policy bc HW is for practice, not to punish you for missing minor things.
During the Spring 2023 semester, Professor Rao's CS70 had a heavy workload that exceeded expectations. His lectures lacked engagement, mainly reading off slides, and he struggled to answer questions effectively. Exams were disproportionately difficult, testing topics barely covered. Overall, a disappointing learning experience.
Doesnt teach
I took this class over the summer when Rao didnt teach it (it was taught by 3 students who actually knew how to teach and wanted us to succeed). I STRONGLY URGE & ENCOURAGE anyone to take this course during the summer without Rao. Even though it's a math class, the staff and instructors ensure that you understand the material and want you to pass.
Spring 2023 here. Rao is an amazing lecturer, his jokes are hilarious and keep you engaged. The only people that find him bad or rate him terribly are people that don't understand his lectures, people that don't pay attention, don't read the notes, and don't know how to learn in general. I actually prefer him over Denero and Hug (both were great).
He does not teach.
Rao is a great person and an incredible researcher. However, if you do not have math competition(I'm talking about a decent rank in AIME) experience, DO NOT take CS70 without understanding of discrete math. His lecturing was awful. The notes are massive amount of text. Rare resources. Literally no one goes to lec. EXTREMELY difficult exams. RUN
CS70 with Professor Rao and Tal was a life-changing experience and deeply shifted my perspective on how I interact with difficult concepts. Rao lectures are concise and intuitive - he makes sure you see the forest for the trees. CS70 is transformative: me going from a 3-week-behind desperate student to enjoying proofs is thanks to Professor Rao.
I found that understanding the material in Professor Rao's class was challenging. It seemed that there were gaps in the explanations provided, and I believe a more thorough grasp of the subject matter would improve the overall learning experience for students. Constructive feedback and additional clarification could benefit the class.
DON'T TAKE HIS CLASS! The professor uses resources and materials from a professor "John Denero". I have had bad experiences understanding his lectures and the example he used wasn't clear. He isn't horrible since he gives enthusiasm and energy to his lecture, but his lecture didn't help me prepare for CS assignments/tests.
Lectures in this class felt redundant, serving as mere summaries for those who had already read the notes. The course seemed more like a do-it-yourself experience, where reading the notes several hundred times was required to fully understand the concepts.Extremely difficult exams.
Just gave the starting lecture for 170 and I genuinely could not understand what he was talking about or why. Reminded me of the time I took 70, it was painful. He is just a bad lecturer, cannot follow his thoughts at all. Just his lecture style made it difficult to learn and understand.
Slow with the tech and not efficient with time but he provides a strong way of thinking regarding programming Woohoooo
Genuinely a good bloke. People joke about Rao but he's got a heart and he really does care. He went out of his way to make himself accessible to us students (he got us boba!). Rao doesn't lecture like a Youtuber, he lectures like a human. He treats us like humans. Sure he's got his flaws, but I wouldn't have preferred to take 61A with anyone else.
He doesn't care, and 70's design generally reflects that. The notes have a lot of gaps which means sitting for hours trying to figure out what's going on, when most of the material isn't that complicated = artificial difficulty.
Prof. Rao leans heavily on personal anecdotes, especially about his daughter, rather than focusing on course material. Concerns arise about his depth of knowledge in the subject. Interactions with students often stray into personal matters, raising questions about maintaining a professional and ethical teacher-student relationship.
Denero's better
Wooooo
Idk what to say
Very funny jokes
Just ok
Weird class type
Doesn't really care about students.
Homework hard af
Bad overall
I don't like his style.
Very bad lectures
I do not know why he shows up for CS170 lectures and the lectures he was given are not good.
Wonderful guy, fun lecturer.
Funny guy but his lecturing is some of the worst I've ever seen. I can't understand a single thing this guy teaches in 1.5 hours, and a 20 minute youtube video will explain everything I needed. For cs70, he assumes you've read notes and understood them before coming to lecture, so he can recap (he doesn't help).
Started the first 4 lectures of cs170 without our knowledge. Made this the hardest start to a class ever and caused me 3 missed homeworks because I can't even understand the prerequesite knowledge he's "teaching". If you get him, watch 2022's lectures.
Apathetic but in a good way. Didn't want to teach the class so can't hold much against him. Discussion of programming as a religion is always interesting, and the way he talks about linked lists really calms my nerves. In a word: Overhated.
Professor Rao is an amazing human being first and foremost. Perhaps he may not be the best at lecturing, but whatever lack in that area he has, he makes up for in humaneness and ingenuity. Rao equipped me well to deal with the hurdles that many computer scientists will come to face in their careers as breakthrough artists of technology.
I think Rao is a great guy, but he just can't teach. His explanations are not intuitive and he reads off of slides while skimming through proofs. You will end up relying on discussions/OH/notes to learn the content. His vitamins often have typos, and his problem sets are very hard. Thankfully, his exams are heavily curved.
The class would have survived without him. Lectures were beyond useless as he always told us to just watch DeNero's videos, which you will have to do anyways because he is a terrible lecturer. DeNero is the only reason this class is as organized as it is.
Great guy but can't teach at all. I was much better off not coming to class.
Entertaining lectures, but they're incomprehensible. No clear grading policies and no clear resources to learn. Pretty much just him yapping throughout class and expecting us to pick up something while he's putting no active effort into creating a good learning environment
Hard to understand
Best professor I had at Berkeley.
bad teacher
Come to lectures having read the notes beforehand, and his lectures will make a lot more sense.
Please stay away if you can. He is demeaning toward students and tries to antagonize. He has actually falsified his identity in a bate and switch / catfish scheme to push students to admitting things that are not true. He also does not follow university teaching policy. Very scary, yells a lot, makes sexual comments about female students.
Rao's teaching style can be hit or miss. Lectures are tough, but the material is manageable with the free textbook and helpful resources like unstuck study. Grit through the challenging assignments, and you'll learn a lot.
This professor can't teach. Although he's somewhat comedic, he makes the content harder to understand. So at the end of the day, you're just teaching yourself discrete mathematics.
Worst professor on campus. Is condescending to students and unwilling to help. Lectures are redundant. The only way to pass this class is by watching videos of someone else's teaching. Avoid at all cost.
I don't get it why he makes the exam so many questions and no one can finish. Reading notes before attending classes does help but not too much and usually it takes hours to finish reading. His lectures are just reading out the slides with no explanation.
Professor Rao is a great and caring person who genuinely cares about his students. I think most people find his class hard because they do not read the lecture notes ahead of time, which is something he assumes all of his students do. If you read the notes ahead of time and try your best to understand them, then you will succeed in his class.
be aware he seems to be making exams significantly harder which is wild for an already infamous class
Class went over tons of topics really fast which is the typical recipe for a highly challenging course, will require lots of diligence and huge variation in difficulty based on previous experience which is unfortunate, still can learn a lot and generally well designed, prof himself is OK but notes/discussions/hw are the key to learning
This class is all learn the material by yourself. Don't even try to understand his lecture, since he just read the slide without explanation and asking you "right?". Suggest learn the probability part from youtube.
I really appreciate Rao's emphasis on intuitive understanding of content and his approach to learning. Contrary to what others say, I thought the lectures were actually pretty useful in solidifying understanding on top of notes. Tests were hard, but grading was fair and TAs were quite responsive.
Super hard exams. Not bad of a guy (quite funny outside of class), but his teaching style is terrible. Made exams super difficult compared to past sem. But overall, meh
Class Info
Online Classes
100%
Attendance Mandatory
4%
Textbook Required
19%
Grade Predictor
Your expected effort level
Predicted Grade
A-
Grade Distribution
Common Tags
Rating Trend
Declining
-0.40 avg changeRatings by Course
CS102
5.0
(1)CS7S0
4.0
(1)CS270
3.8
(4)CS70
2.4
(85)CS170
2.2
(12)Difficulty by Course
CS70
4.4
CS170
4.2
CS270
4.0
CS61A
3.9
CS7S0
3.0