I didn't have any experience with coding before coming into this class, but it was manageable. The class was asynchronous, and we had an "online" textbook linked through MyUCLA and module videos that would give us participation points. Instead of midterms and finals, we had weekly coding quizzes and a group final project. I believe she dropped the 2 lowest quizzes.

Overall, the quizzes were at first quite difficult, but as long as you understand the code from the textbook (I HIGHLY recommend taking notes on THE CODE and its output), you will do well on the quizzes. The quizzes often were just carbon-copies of codes, and you just had to know which was the correct code and output. The final project was alright; it really just depended on how collaborative your group was.

Overall, the class went fine, and it wasn't too difficult!

Your perspective on this class will probably be influence by your major

Psychobiology - this wlll probably be one of your easier pre req classes. The coding in LS30A is harder than what you do with R in Psych. 100A.

Cog Sci - probably going to be one of your easier pre req classes. The difficulty of PIC or CS classes does not compare to what you do with R in this class, not even close.

Psych - probably going to be one of your tougher pre req classes if you are not specializing in computing.

I am only the third person reviewing Montoya and I am surprised to see the low reviews for her. I’m not sure my grade yet, but I do think that Amanda was a really great professor. I am by no means the smartest student or amazing at stats. On bruinwalk, I usually look for the reviews from the B and C students because Ive been really struggling in my classes at UCLA.
However, I was really happy with this professor.
These are the reasons I liked her:
-She was extremely knowledgeable about the material
-She was very welcoming to students in office hours
-She is really helpful one on one and in small group settings.
-She encouraged us to ask questions,
-She never came off impatient or annoyed. It’s evident she cares about her students
-She was energetic
-She uses slides which she would post online before.(She does take attendance in lecture thru poll everywhere, but the slides are still very helpful)
-She is very open to feedback,.
-She uses a thing called ask for me where you can submit questions anonymously totheTAs and they will ask them during lecture to the professor. I absolutely loved this.
-You get a CHEAT SHEET for EVERY SINGLE QUIZ, MDTERM, and FINAL. It is written on a regular piece of paper one sided. You will also get an additional cheat sheet of R codes given by the professor, so you don’t need to memorize codes.

Anyways, you do have weekly homework which is reading in an interactive textbook. I did like this though because it will force you to stay caught up in the class and it’s based on completion so it definitely helps your grade. You get a week to do it, you just cannot hold it off until the hours before it’s due because you will not finish and that would not help your understanding anyways. I usually would break it up by sections over a couple days, it’s reallynot daunting at all.

There were quizzes in discussion every other two weeks. I never did that great on these, but I changed how I studied for the final and I did the best I had on a test in the class. So I do think my poor quiz scores lied in my inefficient studying. I should’ve used notes from the professors slides on my cheat sheet more than my own notes.

BE GRATEUL FOR HW and POLL EVERYWERE questions.. they are both based on completion and easy points that will help your grade.

DONT BE SCARED OF R, it’s not that bad at all and I suck at programming

Go to her office hours. Hardly anyone is there and she is really helpful. It helps to explain he concepts you learn in this class out loud and discuss them.

This class will also definitely enhance your LinkedIn and resume. R is one of the most desired skills in employees for jobs right now and after taking this class you will get to put several skills on your resume relating to R which will give you an edge in internships and jobs.

The class covered a lot of concepts in stats 10 except instead of doing the math by hand you are using R. You are learning a lot more about the meaning behind your calculations s opposed to learning to find the calculations themselves.

Yes, concepts can be difficult but you are not being set up to fail. This class if fair. I do recommend this professor

This was Prof. Montoya's first time teaching so I understood that there would be a learning curve. Even though there were mistakes on the slides and on the quizzes/midterms, she was still a very sweet professor. Someone else mentioned that it was like a student teaching other students and I definitely feel that that was true, she could be a bit awkward at times. I still think she was a pleasant lecturer who clearly knows a lot about stats, just didn't always teach it perfectly. I did progressively worse and worse on the quizzes, my lowest being a 75% and an 80% on the midterm (lowest quiz is dropped thankfully), but the final absolutely saved me. The questions were basically copied and pasted from the past quizzes/midterm and I studied those so much that I ended up acing it, plus she offered one EC point for completing the course evals. So, I would say don't be discouraged, do all of the online homework (which is only graded on completion), take good notes on the online textbook, do all of the in-class participation points with Poll Everywhere (you don't even have to be in the physical class room to get the credit), and the super simple EC assignment and you'll be fine. I think she'll only get better as she teaches more.

For Professor Montoya's first time teaching this course and also my first time taking statistics, it was a great class. We used Canvas and learned how to code using R. You can tell that Professor Montoya cared about our learning as her lectures went deeper into the readings we did from Canvas. The quizzes were kind of tricky because they included some coding in it and was also a little nit picky with questions that came from our readings in Canvas but it was overall fair since the lowest quiz is dropped. The midterm was the same as our quizzes but just accumulated, same goes for the final. The grade breakdown was: HW=20%, In class activities=15%, Quizzes=20%, midterm=20%, final=25%.

Textbook and homework on Canvas. PollEverywhere for in class participation like clicker. No need to install R Studio separately (use R sandbox)
Quizzes, midterm, and final are taken on a computer. Some quiz questions can be tricky. Most questions on the final were from previous quizzes, midterm, and homework problems.
Coding wasn't too difficult for a person with 0 coding experience (it can help to create your own cheatsheet on a word doc on how to generate certain outputs and graphs). 1 sided cheat sheet is allowed for all quizzes, midterm, and final (can be helpful but not necessary if you know the concepts well). R code cheatsheet is provided (but you might want some R code on your own 1 sided cheatsheet).
Statistics concepts weren't difficult to understand (but took Stats 13 before this class).
Lecture can be dry. No separate discussion section.

Psych 100A really isn't that bad of a class, you have weekly online reading with some embedded questions that you just have to do for completion. There are quizzes at the end of the weekly reading that will help prepare you for the in class quizzes. Montoya allows cheat sheets on all of her exams and I recommend making them and copying stuff word for word from the readings. Montoya also offers one extra credit assignment if you need it. Lowest quiz is dropped. I recommend the course with Montoya, I didn't go to class much and still got an A, you have to go to lab on quiz days but not on the other days. Some other professors don't do class participation like Montoya, but it didn't negatively affect my grade.

If you are taking this class, you should have taken stats 10 or 13 before, and if so, this class offers no new math. Having said that, it approaches the same material from the perspective of coding with R which can add a twist. I didnt do so hot on the quizes (B on all 4), however her midterm, homework and final made up for it. Her final literally had questions from the quizes. Also her poll everywhere kinda sucked, but i appreciate the sentiment of low cost materials. overall pretty chill if you are comfortable with stats 10 material.

Please do not listen to the people who took this class in Fall 2019 and all of them got A and A+ because today is 12/24/2019 and we still did not receive any Final grade for this class. This class was very disorganized and the professor is not confident with material and quizzes are totally different from what you learned and read in this class. I spent more than 20 hours studying for this particular class and still could not get an A.

100A is pretty doable. Basically you needed to understand and apply the concepts from the textbook (free, canvas) for the assessments. There is extra credit on quizzes/tests & also you could do the SONA experiment and get an extra 1%. Two mark schemes, so if you don't want to go to class and get the participation points as long as you do well on the exams/quizzes you'll be fine. Professor Montoya is super nice, she started to give more extra credit on the quizzes and made it so we could skip two questions and generally seems to really care about her students and their grades. I would totally take her if you're good at learning on your own from reading and practice problems. I personally find that listening to her lectures just makes me super confused about the material and I do much better when I just learn from Canvas and glance through the slides she uploads to see what to focus on.

This class is basically learning to code in R and learning a little bit of stats vocab and concepts. I took stats in high school, but that was like 5 years ago, so it didn't help much. Someone with know prior knowledge of stats should be fine! I've also had no background coding, and found R to be fine. There are homework assignments online due each week, and besides the first assignment (the first 4 chapters of the book which took like 10+ hours), they usually only took about 2-3 hours which I could finish in 1-2 days, The homework is also graded on completion NOT correctness! There are 4 quizzes, one midterm, and the final. The lowest of the 4 quizzes is dropped, but the quizzes aren't too bad, you take them in the discussion section. The lowest grade I got on them was a 95, and I only went over the homework as my studying for like an hour and made my cheat sheet the night before each quiz (yes you get a one page cheat sheet for every quiz/test. Amanda is very clear and helpful and really wants her students to succeed! Some people were really demanding and rude it felt like, but she took it like a champ and kept calm. She offered a lot of extra credit and changed the ways quizzes were to accommodate concerns of students. There's also easy participation and poll everywhere points, just show up to class. Overall, if you can put the 3-4 hours a work a week for the homework+studying for quiz, this class is an easy A with Montoya! (Bonus: you don't have to buy anything for the class since she uses a free online textbook in Canvas and poll everywhere instead of iClickers)