MATH 170E
Introduction to Probability and Statistics 1: Probability
Description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Requisite: course 32B. Highly recommended: course 61 or 70. Not open to students with credit for course 170A, Electrical and Computer Engineering 131A, or Statistics 100A. Introduction to probability theory with emphasis on topics relevant to applications. Topics include discrete (binomial, Poisson, etc.) and continuous (exponential, gamma, chi-square, normal) distributions, bivariate distributions, distributions of functions of random variables (including moment generating functions and central limit theorem). P/NP or letter grading.
Units: 4.0
Units: 4.0
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Most Helpful Review
Winter 2022 - Overall, Ben is a great professor, and you can’t go wrong with him. There are a few things I will nitpick and warn future students about, however. The first several weeks of the class are very much like a high school probability/stats course or Econ 41. You learn about counting, then conditional probability and Bayes’ theorem, then discrete random variables and MGF’s until the end of week 4. After week 4, the class becomes markedly harder. You learn about continuous random variables, bivariate distributions, conditional bivariate distributions, continuous bivariate distributions, and inequalities like Chebyshev’s before finishing with the central limit theorem. I thought Ben did a great job of putting all the information about these topics out there. However, I feel like I leave this class with a lack of intuition about probability. I still lack an intuitive understanding of what a random variable is, for example, even though I kept up with the class. It felt like I was playing around with objects I didn’t fully understand, so I’m leaving this class with a little less understanding than I expected. Big warning for future students: the class is very backloaded. The final alone is worth 45% of the grade. The topics that you learn in the latter half of the class are generally harder, in my opinion, meaning that the class will be smooth sailing until the very end, where you realize it was a bad idea to put this class on the back burner for 5 weeks. I imagine Ben grades like this so that students are tested most on the new material they learn (rather than the introductory material they they may have learned in high school). Although I completely understand why he does this, it still makes the class pretty hectic toward the end.
Winter 2022 - Overall, Ben is a great professor, and you can’t go wrong with him. There are a few things I will nitpick and warn future students about, however. The first several weeks of the class are very much like a high school probability/stats course or Econ 41. You learn about counting, then conditional probability and Bayes’ theorem, then discrete random variables and MGF’s until the end of week 4. After week 4, the class becomes markedly harder. You learn about continuous random variables, bivariate distributions, conditional bivariate distributions, continuous bivariate distributions, and inequalities like Chebyshev’s before finishing with the central limit theorem. I thought Ben did a great job of putting all the information about these topics out there. However, I feel like I leave this class with a lack of intuition about probability. I still lack an intuitive understanding of what a random variable is, for example, even though I kept up with the class. It felt like I was playing around with objects I didn’t fully understand, so I’m leaving this class with a little less understanding than I expected. Big warning for future students: the class is very backloaded. The final alone is worth 45% of the grade. The topics that you learn in the latter half of the class are generally harder, in my opinion, meaning that the class will be smooth sailing until the very end, where you realize it was a bad idea to put this class on the back burner for 5 weeks. I imagine Ben grades like this so that students are tested most on the new material they learn (rather than the introductory material they they may have learned in high school). Although I completely understand why he does this, it still makes the class pretty hectic toward the end.
Most Helpful Review
Spring 2021 - COVID QTR - Overall, this was a pretty good class. The lectures were very clear and there were two projects with a bit of MATLAB/R (your choice, could even be C++) coding that were a little long but fun! The weekly homework assignments took a very long time (4-13 hours) and sometimes required me to read a few chapters of the textbook, but towards the end the professor made the workload a bit lighter. If you know calculus i.e. how to compute indefinite and double integrals, you should be completely prepared. Professor Needell and our TA Derek were very knowledgeable and approachable throughout the quarter and recorded their lectures/sections making the class logistics very convenient. Be aware that the class structure may change in the future as this was all online, but I would take another class with this professor again. This was a good class to learn probability and prepare you for any future classes that have a probability requisite.
Spring 2021 - COVID QTR - Overall, this was a pretty good class. The lectures were very clear and there were two projects with a bit of MATLAB/R (your choice, could even be C++) coding that were a little long but fun! The weekly homework assignments took a very long time (4-13 hours) and sometimes required me to read a few chapters of the textbook, but towards the end the professor made the workload a bit lighter. If you know calculus i.e. how to compute indefinite and double integrals, you should be completely prepared. Professor Needell and our TA Derek were very knowledgeable and approachable throughout the quarter and recorded their lectures/sections making the class logistics very convenient. Be aware that the class structure may change in the future as this was all online, but I would take another class with this professor again. This was a good class to learn probability and prepare you for any future classes that have a probability requisite.
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Summer 2021 - Professor Kye is a super nice guy. He's very accommodating and polite. However, his effort towards this class was super low. I don't mind him lecturing straight out of the book. If he thinks the book is the best source, then that's fine. It's his assignments/exams that bothered me. Here's a fuller breakdown: 1) Professor Kye did not collect homework. Your grade is based on three exams: two midterms and one final exam. He did send emails with problems from the book that you should do to prepare. I felt like he stopped trying with those problems as the weeks went on. I don't think he even looked at what he was assigning, as some of the problems he picked were very bizarre. In office hours, he mentioned once that he hasn't looked at the problems yet, but I suspect he never looks at them, as he is not interested in any questions from the HW but is rather there to help you with lecture material. 2) His exams are very much inspired by the textbook as well. However, for our second midterm, he gave a problem that was not covered. Five hours into the exam time period (36 hours), he sent an email telling us to skip that problem. This shows that he literally didn't even look at the exam before publishing it. I'm guessing he made the exam a while ago and just put it away until it was time to release it. This type of effort is a bit annoying, because I spent a lot of my time trying to figure that problem out before he sent his late email. 3) His final wasn't cumulative, but the problems were definitely harder than the midterm problems. Lot of the problems required old stuff you learned pre-midterm 2 anyway, so even though the final wasn't cumulative, it might as well have been. If you self study throughout the quarter and go to TA office hours, I think you will be good to go. Overall, Professor Kye is a good guy, but his class was kind of a mess. Math 170E is one of the easier math upper divs, so I think you will be alright! Good luck!
Summer 2021 - Professor Kye is a super nice guy. He's very accommodating and polite. However, his effort towards this class was super low. I don't mind him lecturing straight out of the book. If he thinks the book is the best source, then that's fine. It's his assignments/exams that bothered me. Here's a fuller breakdown: 1) Professor Kye did not collect homework. Your grade is based on three exams: two midterms and one final exam. He did send emails with problems from the book that you should do to prepare. I felt like he stopped trying with those problems as the weeks went on. I don't think he even looked at what he was assigning, as some of the problems he picked were very bizarre. In office hours, he mentioned once that he hasn't looked at the problems yet, but I suspect he never looks at them, as he is not interested in any questions from the HW but is rather there to help you with lecture material. 2) His exams are very much inspired by the textbook as well. However, for our second midterm, he gave a problem that was not covered. Five hours into the exam time period (36 hours), he sent an email telling us to skip that problem. This shows that he literally didn't even look at the exam before publishing it. I'm guessing he made the exam a while ago and just put it away until it was time to release it. This type of effort is a bit annoying, because I spent a lot of my time trying to figure that problem out before he sent his late email. 3) His final wasn't cumulative, but the problems were definitely harder than the midterm problems. Lot of the problems required old stuff you learned pre-midterm 2 anyway, so even though the final wasn't cumulative, it might as well have been. If you self study throughout the quarter and go to TA office hours, I think you will be good to go. Overall, Professor Kye is a good guy, but his class was kind of a mess. Math 170E is one of the easier math upper divs, so I think you will be alright! Good luck!
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Winter 2024 - Way harder than other professors. He distributes the grades so that about 1/3 of the class gets 'A's, 1/3 gets 'B's, and 1/3 gets 'C's. His tests are harder than other professors and he covers a lot more material. He makes a lot of mistakes on the board and his lectures are very hard to follow. He assigns homework due Friday and he finishes teaching the relevant material on Wednesday (so you only have two days to do that HW and it takes a lot of time). I would try to take this class with someone else.
Winter 2024 - Way harder than other professors. He distributes the grades so that about 1/3 of the class gets 'A's, 1/3 gets 'B's, and 1/3 gets 'C's. His tests are harder than other professors and he covers a lot more material. He makes a lot of mistakes on the board and his lectures are very hard to follow. He assigns homework due Friday and he finishes teaching the relevant material on Wednesday (so you only have two days to do that HW and it takes a lot of time). I would try to take this class with someone else.
Most Helpful Review
Fall 2020 - Overall, this class wasn't bad. Professor Nam is a fairly good lecturer and always seeks to answer his student's questions. However, I don't think he provides good enough examples for concepts; rather, the examples he gives in class are pretty elementary and doesn't prepare us for more difficult questions. The textbook is pretty shitty too in my opinion. The midterms were easy but the final was very very hard. I wouldn't count on the midterms for his class to be easy in the future as it seems he made the final extra hard to offset the good grades we got from the midterms. Also, he didn't curve grades in the end despite very low scores on the final. Make sure to try to get 100% on every homework as that category is a large part of your grade and every point counts! Course Breakdown: Homework - 30% Midterm 1 - 20% Midterm 2 - 20% Final - 30% Exam Medians: Midterm 1 - 96% Midterm 2 - 95% Final - 66%
Fall 2020 - Overall, this class wasn't bad. Professor Nam is a fairly good lecturer and always seeks to answer his student's questions. However, I don't think he provides good enough examples for concepts; rather, the examples he gives in class are pretty elementary and doesn't prepare us for more difficult questions. The textbook is pretty shitty too in my opinion. The midterms were easy but the final was very very hard. I wouldn't count on the midterms for his class to be easy in the future as it seems he made the final extra hard to offset the good grades we got from the midterms. Also, he didn't curve grades in the end despite very low scores on the final. Make sure to try to get 100% on every homework as that category is a large part of your grade and every point counts! Course Breakdown: Homework - 30% Midterm 1 - 20% Midterm 2 - 20% Final - 30% Exam Medians: Midterm 1 - 96% Midterm 2 - 95% Final - 66%
Most Helpful Review
Spring 2024 - Combinatorics does not come naturally to me and I found even the basics confusing. Things eventually clicked in how to recognize certain simpler distributions for the homework problems, but Professor Needell wasn't particularly helpful in this. I did not learn much in class, and I had to watch learn via looking up solutions. I have no idea how to recognize or the real world applications of half of the distributions we learned about (ex. Gamma, Chi-Square), which is disappointing since I know they are used quite extensively in multiple fields of study. There was a tedious-amount of homework, which I guess were helpful in tackling exam problems, since I did not learn much from lectures. I can't speak to how helpful she is outside of class (because I never figured out her office hours sign up). Her first two exams were relatively-easy in regard to the content we were learning, but the final was very hard. I was saved by the fact that it was multiple-choice and made very good educated guesses. In summary, I think that there must be better 170E professors than Needell, since I didn't learn much directly from her, but I don't think this class is necessarily that difficult.
Spring 2024 - Combinatorics does not come naturally to me and I found even the basics confusing. Things eventually clicked in how to recognize certain simpler distributions for the homework problems, but Professor Needell wasn't particularly helpful in this. I did not learn much in class, and I had to watch learn via looking up solutions. I have no idea how to recognize or the real world applications of half of the distributions we learned about (ex. Gamma, Chi-Square), which is disappointing since I know they are used quite extensively in multiple fields of study. There was a tedious-amount of homework, which I guess were helpful in tackling exam problems, since I did not learn much from lectures. I can't speak to how helpful she is outside of class (because I never figured out her office hours sign up). Her first two exams were relatively-easy in regard to the content we were learning, but the final was very hard. I was saved by the fact that it was multiple-choice and made very good educated guesses. In summary, I think that there must be better 170E professors than Needell, since I didn't learn much directly from her, but I don't think this class is necessarily that difficult.
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