DO NOT TAKE PS6 WITH ZALLER

I took this class because my counselor told me this was an easier alternative to Stats 10 for math-challenged people like me.

However, this class included A LOT of math. So if you're more of a humanities person, beware.

Zaller is an average professor, but EXTREMELY dry, intimidating, and boring. I couldn't stand his lectures. He encourages students to actually podcast, but that is a very dangerous path to laziness and procrastination.

His data essays were absolutely ridiculous and harshly graded. His class was soooooooooo fast paced towards the later half of the quarter, I almost died.

I got a damn D+ in this useless class

If you are a Poli Sci major, you MUST take Zaller. I have never seen a professor at UCLA so passionate and truly interested in student learning. Sure, people wrote here that he is awkward and stand-offish, he's a statistician for god's sake-what do you expect. He teaches statistics and data analysis so slow, so detailed, and provides real world examples. You can tell he's a genius in his field but still can teach in a down to earth style. If you actually want to learn something and not worry about being super competitive, stress about grades, etc. take him. If you do the work reasonably well, I mean do ALL OF IT- whether it be quizzes, assignments etc.. He WILL give you the benefit of the doubt. He is not out to "screw" anyone over. Office hours are not necessary to excel but I hear good things about people how go to his office hours. I am a B+ average student who is not a suck-up or super hard studier, yet I found myself actually learning and wanting to do stuff in his class.
For PS 6 Spring 2011, here was the breakdown
-280 people in our class - lectures podcasted online.
-4-5 T.A.'s with SO many office hours. Jesse Acevedo would do office hours at night, on weekends, etc. Rob and Stacey also wrote back e-mails within the hour. The best T.A's I've seen in any class at UCLA
-5 Data Essays. These ranged from easy to super hard at the end. But if you met w/ a T.A. or even him for 5 minutes, they guided you.
-Weekly quizzes. This was done online, not super hard and they are not timed. He does that so you can actually reference your notes
-Midterm - 20 questions, some mathy, some just practical stuff. He even did a make-up midterm for people scoring a 75% or lower and provided 3 review sessions.
-Final - 20 questions, not so much mathy, a lot of the questions were similar to the quiz questions.

The only cons I could think of was that it got a little overwhelming and fast paced at the end but overall this class is good for any level of UCLA. I don't think I'll walk out of this class getting an "A", but it was worth it.

I took PS 6 with Zaller this quarter (Spring 2011). If you are a PS major and considering this class, i.e. as an alternative to Stats 10, definitely do so. I will admit, Zaller's lectures can be quite dry at times- and his lectures on Bruin Cast/in-depth power point slides tempt you not to go to class. I didn't go to class before the midterm, but started going after just because Zaller is a very amusing professor.

The class is very straightforward. Zaller does an AMAZING job at integrating everything he teaches into what you need to know to do well in the class. The Data Essay assignments are the most time-consuming part of the class, and if you manage them well, they aren't bad. The last one is probably the hardest assignment by far in the entire class, and doesn't take too long if you prepare for it by giving yourself some time to really understand the data. The tests are very fair as well.

As far as Zaller goes, he is a fantastic professor. He may come off as intimidating at times, especially when answering students' questions in class, but he definitely cares about his students. He spends A LOT of time to present material in a way that is straightforward and intuitive to students. If you go to his office hours, he is very welcoming. In addition to this, he is proactive about hearing student feedback about what works and what doesn't.

In summary, the class isn't bad at all. An A can be attained with relative ease, especially if you give it a little more attention than just reading the lecture slides the night before an exam. Furthermore, Zaller is a fantastic professor that you NEED to take a class with while here at UCLA. He is a quirky guy, but I feel like it makes his lecture style entertaining in an odd way.

This class seemed more difficult than said in past reviews. Although this is considering the larger class size that was taught in a lecture as opposed to in a computer lab. Zaller is extremely meticulous when teaching, providing several examples to introduce a concept. This is usually helpful, except for when it starts to get longwinded. Data essays were ok, but towards the end became relatively difficult due to the open-endedness of the prompts. However, Zaller is overall a great professor who really seems to care about students' understanding of statistics.

I think Zaller is a bright man and an excellent scholar. As a professor though, I don't like the fact that he will slow down a class just because ONE person doesn't get the material. I understand that the duty of a professor to ensure that his students understand what he teaches, but slowing everything down for one person seems a little bit extreme. All in all, the class was easy, he goes over the general ideas fairly well and glosses over the statistical details; he hands out extra credit like candy (I'm not complaining). He really does care about his students.

I took PS6R (corequisite with PS50R) with Zaller. This is a really good course. Considering that everyone who takes the class is a north campus major, he goes FAIRLY light on actual statistics, focusing more on applications for social sciences. I am an idiot when it comes to math/stats and I got an A. He gives out extra credit and really makes it possible for everybody to do well. Def take this over Stats10 to fill the PS pre-rec.

A quick note about Zaller's personality -- he had a tendency to pick random favorites and loves everything that they do. On the flip side, he also gets really annoyed with certain people (I think I was one of them), but just man up and don't take it personally. He will shoot down some good questions and be really excited about dumb questions. Whatever; overall, I would definitely say you should take this class, but just keep that in mind.

Took Poli Sci 6 with Zaller and I can honestly say he worked hard to make it possible for every single person to get an 'A'. The guy's awesome, I would jump at the chance to get into another one of his classes in the future. He's the best professor I've had here by far.

Took poli sci 6 with this professor and would definitely reccomend his class, especially as an alternative to stats10. He is very fair and deeply cares about his students.