It was her first quarter teaching this class when I took it. Many people have heard about the chaos of our first midterm (there weren't enough paper copies), but Shao ultimately tried her best to make sure it didn't negatively affect us. We were able to choose to retake the exam or disregard it and weigh our other exams heavier. The retake exam was more than fair; it was extremely similar to the original test. She also offered extra credit when most of us would miss an exam question. The people saying bad things about this professor are just mad about what happened in the first midterm, but that wasn't necessarily her fault and she did address it in the best way possible. I also think that Shao had very clear lectures and was very open to helping students. Homework and quizzes were fine and we were able to work together on them. Getting an A in this class is very doable but most people want to dwell on mistakes that happened rather than take the opportunities she gives students.

This was her first time teaching this class so, as you imagine, it was a mess. She started of the quarter by allowing the midterms and final to be open book, meaning we could use our iPads to look at our notes but the Wi-Fi had to be off. Well, obviously, there was some cheating later on in the course so she took that priviledge away and made us print out any notes we wanted to have out during the Final, which was totally absurd and expensive. She was a hot mess the entire quarter if you could not tell already. During the first midterm, she assigned us to different lectures and when the time came to take the exam the TA's tell us to share one exam packet for every group of 3 because she didn't make enough copies. It was a whole mess because she didn't want us looking over people's papers yet wanted us to share a packet. Everyone emailed the dean and department chair and she was told to re-administer the exam but she chose a day during class (50 minute time limit). She ended up assigning 8 questions all with (a-f questions) which was crazy so then everyone emailed the dean and department chair about it and she had to curve the exam immensely. Her lectures are very hard to follow so it doesn't help much. Her homework worksheets were alright. Her discussions were attendance tracked too.