Professor

Rowan Killip

AD
3.4
Overall Ratings
Based on 95 Users
Easiness 2.2 / 5 How easy the class is, 1 being extremely difficult and 5 being easy peasy.
Workload 2.5 / 5 How light the workload is, 1 being extremely heavy and 5 being extremely light.
Clarity 3.3 / 5 How clear the professor is, 1 being extremely unclear and 5 being very clear.
Helpfulness 3.4 / 5 How helpful the professor is, 1 being not helpful at all and 5 being extremely helpful.

Reviews (95)

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MATH 33A
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
June 26, 2020
Quarter: Spring 2020
Grade: A

I took this class online during COVID 19. Although the material itself is not terrible (easier than the 32 series but harder than 33b), I highly recommend that you DO NOT take this class with Killip. His pre-recorded lectures were vague and hard to follow (although he did provide some comic relief by telling himself "concentrate!" as he lost his train of thought every 3 seconds), so much so that I decided to stop watching them altogether by the 2nd week and read the entire textbook instead. He regularly did not show up to his own office hours, and was often unresponsive to emails or posts on questionsly, so prepare yourself to be frustrated and have unanswered questions if you take this class. The midterms were 90 minutes long, which considering the circumstances I thought was pretty unfair, but the material on them was definitely doable if you studied. We had a 24 hour final (because the math department forced him to), and although it was noticeably more difficult content-wise than the midterms, we had more time so overall it was easier. The only good thing about this class was the notes the TAs posted from their discussion sections. That's literally it. I would absolutely not take this class with Killip due to his bad lectures and overall lack of interest in helping his students.

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MATH 33A
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
June 23, 2020
Quarter: Spring 2020
Grade: A

*I took this course with the online format due to COVID-19
Professor Killip was a decent professor. I thought that his lectures were sometimes vague and a little confusing as he tends to ramble while he gathers his thoughts. The HW was sometimes a challenge but was not too overwhelming. The quizzes made up a large portion of your grade and were fairly easy. The midterms and final were also very easy as the median for them was around 90% and mostly required computational problems. I think if you watch and understand the general ideas behind each of his lectures, you should do well.

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2 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
MATH 134
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Dec. 22, 2020
Quarter: Fall 2020
Grade: B

If you are the type of math student who loves math and math is your everything, take Killip. However, if you’re a regular person who enjoyed math 33b and is excited to take an upper div differential equations class FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DO NOT!!! take Killip. For one, his homeworks take AGES. The material in the hw is next to impossible to do unless you attend every office hour, the lecture and textbook material are only slightly related. His exams expand on the homeworks that are already a huge LEAP from the things he lectures on. If you end up taking Killip, camp out in his and the TA’s OH to get those homework answers. Lecture will not help you.

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MATH 33A
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Aug. 27, 2020
Quarter: Spring 2020
Grade: A

I took this class online because of COVID. Lectures were prerecorded. The professor would post them a couple hours before lecture time and answer questions in lecture time. Lectures were very confusing and hard to follow. I had to spend way too much time in discussion+reading the textbook to understand the material. Homework and quizzes took way too long each week and were extremely difficult. However, midterms(1.5 hrs) and the final(24 hrs)were doable. I'd avoid taking him if possible.

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MATH 33A
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
June 22, 2020
Quarter: Spring 2020
Grade: A

I took this class in an online format due to COVID19. Killip posts prerecorded lectures and he is on zoom during the assigned lecture time to answer questions, which I thought was really nice of him. However, I feel like a lot of the material during lecture was quite complicated, sometimes he taught us proofs that I thought were unnecessary to know in this class. A lot of times I have to look into the textbook to understand the class material. I'd say that the midterms were not too bad, but the final was a little brutal. It was supposed to be a 24 hour final taken in 3 hours, but I ended up using 6+ hours, and I think most people did too. Grading consists of weekly quizzes, weekly homework, midterms, and final. For the quizzes and homework, sometimes they're easy, and sometimes they're hard. However, I don't think it's hard to get an A. As long as you understand the concepts well, do the homework, and go to office hours when you have questions, you will be fine. Shout out to my awesome TA Bon-Soon for explaining concepts clearly and making this class doable.

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Dec. 12, 2025
Quarter: Fall 2025
Grade: B+

Funny guy but the lectures are genuinely horrible. Teaches concepts in an extremely round-about and complicated way when it really doesn't have to be. This class was entirely self-learned for me due to how bad these lectures were.
He provides homeworks as a way to test our knowledge for the tests. Unfortunately, these answers are never posted nor explained so it is entirely on you to find out if you are on the right track. To add on to this, the exams were extremely different from the homework and asked us types of questions that were never taught.
Overall, he made this class harder than it has to be. You should be okay if you are self-reliant and resourceful on your own but if you want a good professor for this class look elsewhere.

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April 30, 2025
Quarter: Spring 2024
Grade: A

Fun lectures and interesting content. Note that this class is a lot more proof-/theory-heavy than 170A (which I also took with Killip).

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April 4, 2024
Quarter: Winter 2024
Grade: A

In terms of lectures, I liked Prof. Killip's teaching. I generally found him quite clear, and his lecturing style does have quite a bit of personality. My impression is that in terms of course content, we hit all the points, and then some; in particular, I appreciated how Prof. Killip would sometimes talk (both briefly, or to some length) about probability topics that may not have been in the course description, but were often relevant/important nonetheless. In terms of formality, I didn't find the class to be especially formal, though we did still do a fair number of proofs & convergence analyses. [A shout-out, also, to our TA James Hogan.] I did admittedly have some trouble following Prof. Killip during the last week of the course, while he was covering multivariate normal distributions; other than that, however, I found everything else understandable.

As far as homeworks go, though...woof. To play the devil's advocate, the homework was very helpful in getting a better understanding of course info and practicing the various concepts covered. Even certain ideas/topics that were only briefly mentioned in class, got a fair share of attention and expanding-upon in the homework; some of the homework questions also touched on more application-relevant topics, such as estimation and sampling. That being said, there was a lot of it. A lo-o-ot lot. The homeworks were generally 5-6 questions, very slightly computation-leaning, and took me maybe 6-8? hours on average. That alone doesn't sound too bad...except there were 10 of them, one a week (including midterm week + and week 10), which basically means there is no such thing as a break with this class. To be fair, we did get 2 homework drops; that being said, all questions were graded on correctness, and some of the homework questions were legitimately difficult. To rub extra salt in the wound, all homeworks were posted on Saturdays and due 9 AM the following Friday, which meant we actually had 6 days for each homework...assuming all the requisite knowledge had been covered, otherwise it was more like 4 days. To Prof. Killip's credit, he was generally helpful and did a good job answering questions during office hours.

As far as exams go, I personally thought they were okay. They thankfully weren't as difficult as the homeworks, and I found them to be fairly reasonable for the most part, though the timing was a little tight. We did have averages in the mid 70s for both the midterm and the final; that being said, I believe there was also a fairly generous curve. (I made some pretty dumb mistakes on the final, ended with a raw score of ~89%, and got an A.) As a side note, our class only had 15 people in it by week 6, which was kinda strange; I don't recall us ever having too many people, so it wasn't necessarily an attrition thing, but I can't say if the small class size ended up affecting grading somehow.

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June 19, 2013
Quarter: N/A
Grade: N/A

Professor Killip was hilarious! He was pretty cool but his homework was very hard!!! it took me hours to complete it and figure out as he asks his own questions. However, the homework gives you a good understanding of the material and it is similar to the midterm and final. The midterm and final were absolutely difficult! the averages were both around the low 50's . Make sure you know everything in the book, and everything from the homework. Also study the definitions and theorems as well! and understand them conceptually since he usually asks something else about the theorem or definition.

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0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
June 27, 2010
Quarter: N/A
Grade: N/A

Professor Killip made 32B enjoyable for me. He made the concepts simple, and his lectures were easy to follow. I like that he would always create one problem on the homework, because it usually really tested your understanding of the material. The first midterm was easy, the second midterm was even easier, but the final was ridiculously hard. Thank god for curves. I always found his jokes very funny, which made a 9 am class much more bearable. If you have the opportunity to take any math class with Professor Killip, do it! You won't be disappointed.

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0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
MATH 33A
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Quarter: Spring 2020
Grade: A
June 26, 2020

I took this class online during COVID 19. Although the material itself is not terrible (easier than the 32 series but harder than 33b), I highly recommend that you DO NOT take this class with Killip. His pre-recorded lectures were vague and hard to follow (although he did provide some comic relief by telling himself "concentrate!" as he lost his train of thought every 3 seconds), so much so that I decided to stop watching them altogether by the 2nd week and read the entire textbook instead. He regularly did not show up to his own office hours, and was often unresponsive to emails or posts on questionsly, so prepare yourself to be frustrated and have unanswered questions if you take this class. The midterms were 90 minutes long, which considering the circumstances I thought was pretty unfair, but the material on them was definitely doable if you studied. We had a 24 hour final (because the math department forced him to), and although it was noticeably more difficult content-wise than the midterms, we had more time so overall it was easier. The only good thing about this class was the notes the TAs posted from their discussion sections. That's literally it. I would absolutely not take this class with Killip due to his bad lectures and overall lack of interest in helping his students.

Helpful?

2 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
MATH 33A
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Quarter: Spring 2020
Grade: A
June 23, 2020

*I took this course with the online format due to COVID-19
Professor Killip was a decent professor. I thought that his lectures were sometimes vague and a little confusing as he tends to ramble while he gathers his thoughts. The HW was sometimes a challenge but was not too overwhelming. The quizzes made up a large portion of your grade and were fairly easy. The midterms and final were also very easy as the median for them was around 90% and mostly required computational problems. I think if you watch and understand the general ideas behind each of his lectures, you should do well.

Helpful?

2 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
MATH 134
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Quarter: Fall 2020
Grade: B
Dec. 22, 2020

If you are the type of math student who loves math and math is your everything, take Killip. However, if you’re a regular person who enjoyed math 33b and is excited to take an upper div differential equations class FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DO NOT!!! take Killip. For one, his homeworks take AGES. The material in the hw is next to impossible to do unless you attend every office hour, the lecture and textbook material are only slightly related. His exams expand on the homeworks that are already a huge LEAP from the things he lectures on. If you end up taking Killip, camp out in his and the TA’s OH to get those homework answers. Lecture will not help you.

Helpful?

1 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
MATH 33A
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Quarter: Spring 2020
Grade: A
Aug. 27, 2020

I took this class online because of COVID. Lectures were prerecorded. The professor would post them a couple hours before lecture time and answer questions in lecture time. Lectures were very confusing and hard to follow. I had to spend way too much time in discussion+reading the textbook to understand the material. Homework and quizzes took way too long each week and were extremely difficult. However, midterms(1.5 hrs) and the final(24 hrs)were doable. I'd avoid taking him if possible.

Helpful?

1 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
MATH 33A
COVID-19 This review was submitted during the COVID-19 pandemic. Your experience may vary.
Quarter: Spring 2020
Grade: A
June 22, 2020

I took this class in an online format due to COVID19. Killip posts prerecorded lectures and he is on zoom during the assigned lecture time to answer questions, which I thought was really nice of him. However, I feel like a lot of the material during lecture was quite complicated, sometimes he taught us proofs that I thought were unnecessary to know in this class. A lot of times I have to look into the textbook to understand the class material. I'd say that the midterms were not too bad, but the final was a little brutal. It was supposed to be a 24 hour final taken in 3 hours, but I ended up using 6+ hours, and I think most people did too. Grading consists of weekly quizzes, weekly homework, midterms, and final. For the quizzes and homework, sometimes they're easy, and sometimes they're hard. However, I don't think it's hard to get an A. As long as you understand the concepts well, do the homework, and go to office hours when you have questions, you will be fine. Shout out to my awesome TA Bon-Soon for explaining concepts clearly and making this class doable.

Helpful?

1 1 Please log in to provide feedback.
MATH 32B
Quarter: Fall 2025
Grade: B+
Dec. 12, 2025

Funny guy but the lectures are genuinely horrible. Teaches concepts in an extremely round-about and complicated way when it really doesn't have to be. This class was entirely self-learned for me due to how bad these lectures were.
He provides homeworks as a way to test our knowledge for the tests. Unfortunately, these answers are never posted nor explained so it is entirely on you to find out if you are on the right track. To add on to this, the exams were extremely different from the homework and asked us types of questions that were never taught.
Overall, he made this class harder than it has to be. You should be okay if you are self-reliant and resourceful on your own but if you want a good professor for this class look elsewhere.

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
MATH 170B
Quarter: Spring 2024
Grade: A
April 30, 2025

Fun lectures and interesting content. Note that this class is a lot more proof-/theory-heavy than 170A (which I also took with Killip).

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
MATH 170A
Quarter: Winter 2024
Grade: A
April 4, 2024

In terms of lectures, I liked Prof. Killip's teaching. I generally found him quite clear, and his lecturing style does have quite a bit of personality. My impression is that in terms of course content, we hit all the points, and then some; in particular, I appreciated how Prof. Killip would sometimes talk (both briefly, or to some length) about probability topics that may not have been in the course description, but were often relevant/important nonetheless. In terms of formality, I didn't find the class to be especially formal, though we did still do a fair number of proofs & convergence analyses. [A shout-out, also, to our TA James Hogan.] I did admittedly have some trouble following Prof. Killip during the last week of the course, while he was covering multivariate normal distributions; other than that, however, I found everything else understandable.

As far as homeworks go, though...woof. To play the devil's advocate, the homework was very helpful in getting a better understanding of course info and practicing the various concepts covered. Even certain ideas/topics that were only briefly mentioned in class, got a fair share of attention and expanding-upon in the homework; some of the homework questions also touched on more application-relevant topics, such as estimation and sampling. That being said, there was a lot of it. A lo-o-ot lot. The homeworks were generally 5-6 questions, very slightly computation-leaning, and took me maybe 6-8? hours on average. That alone doesn't sound too bad...except there were 10 of them, one a week (including midterm week + and week 10), which basically means there is no such thing as a break with this class. To be fair, we did get 2 homework drops; that being said, all questions were graded on correctness, and some of the homework questions were legitimately difficult. To rub extra salt in the wound, all homeworks were posted on Saturdays and due 9 AM the following Friday, which meant we actually had 6 days for each homework...assuming all the requisite knowledge had been covered, otherwise it was more like 4 days. To Prof. Killip's credit, he was generally helpful and did a good job answering questions during office hours.

As far as exams go, I personally thought they were okay. They thankfully weren't as difficult as the homeworks, and I found them to be fairly reasonable for the most part, though the timing was a little tight. We did have averages in the mid 70s for both the midterm and the final; that being said, I believe there was also a fairly generous curve. (I made some pretty dumb mistakes on the final, ended with a raw score of ~89%, and got an A.) As a side note, our class only had 15 people in it by week 6, which was kinda strange; I don't recall us ever having too many people, so it wasn't necessarily an attrition thing, but I can't say if the small class size ended up affecting grading somehow.

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
MATH 134
Quarter: N/A
Grade: N/A
June 19, 2013

Professor Killip was hilarious! He was pretty cool but his homework was very hard!!! it took me hours to complete it and figure out as he asks his own questions. However, the homework gives you a good understanding of the material and it is similar to the midterm and final. The midterm and final were absolutely difficult! the averages were both around the low 50's . Make sure you know everything in the book, and everything from the homework. Also study the definitions and theorems as well! and understand them conceptually since he usually asks something else about the theorem or definition.

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
MATH 32B
Quarter: N/A
Grade: N/A
June 27, 2010

Professor Killip made 32B enjoyable for me. He made the concepts simple, and his lectures were easy to follow. I like that he would always create one problem on the homework, because it usually really tested your understanding of the material. The first midterm was easy, the second midterm was even easier, but the final was ridiculously hard. Thank god for curves. I always found his jokes very funny, which made a 9 am class much more bearable. If you have the opportunity to take any math class with Professor Killip, do it! You won't be disappointed.

Helpful?

0 0 Please log in to provide feedback.
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