Professor
Loong Kong
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Most Helpful Review
Let me just start off by saying that I'm not rating Kong based on his overall effectiveness as a college lecturer, but rather based on how effective he is at helping you pass the FM exam. First of all, this guy doesn't lecture; he spends five to ten minutes at most talking about a new topic (five minutes on bonds, five minutes on amortization, and so forth). After his brief talk, he passes out a stack of questions from the FM exams, and solves them one by one, again with very little explanation beyond the basic steps. That was pretty much the structure of the entire class up until the last two weeks, when he spent a lot of time showing us Excel sheets/graphs about call/put options, and interest rate swaps. (However, he still never really talked about what swaps and options are beyond the basic definitions and ideas.) Knowing that, the obvious strategy you should adopt when taking his class is to read about the underlying topics outside of lecture, and use the lecture ONLY for problem solving strategies. Getting back to my first point, if I were to evaluate him as a typical college professor, then he would be average at best, because students clearly have to spend a lot of time in addition to the lectures to get all the concepts. However, let me remind you that any young actuary will say that the rule of thumb is 100 hours of studying per 1 hour of test time (that's 300 hours of studying for the FM). After taking Kong's class, I'm relatively confident that the time I spent on his class throughout the quarter (less than a hundred hours) plus a few extra hours will be thoroughly enough to pass the exam. In fact I know of people who already passed the exam after taking Kong's class, having studied no where near the recommended number of hours. This is because Kong provided so many tricks to help approach all the different kinds of questions, and whether he explains each of his brilliant tricks or not (he doesn't), you will have all the tricks on your notebook at the end of the quarter. That is why in the end, I still must say he is a good professor, because he does what he is suppose to do, which is help students pass the actuary exams. A quick summary of the grading scheme of the actual class: 20% quizzes, participation, attendance, and project (5% each), 30% midterm, 50% final. His tests (10 questions each) are conceptual on par or perhaps easier (but longer) than FM exam questions. He tells students the exact topic(s) each of the questions will be on before the test. His midterm average was 56%, and I dare say the final average was no better (because it was slightly harder). In conclusion, if you want a typical upper division math class, then run far far away with your proofs tucked between your legs. But if you truly are interested in being an actuary, and you want to get a taste of what studying for the SOA exams are like, then there's nothing quite as good as a Kong quarter.
Let me just start off by saying that I'm not rating Kong based on his overall effectiveness as a college lecturer, but rather based on how effective he is at helping you pass the FM exam. First of all, this guy doesn't lecture; he spends five to ten minutes at most talking about a new topic (five minutes on bonds, five minutes on amortization, and so forth). After his brief talk, he passes out a stack of questions from the FM exams, and solves them one by one, again with very little explanation beyond the basic steps. That was pretty much the structure of the entire class up until the last two weeks, when he spent a lot of time showing us Excel sheets/graphs about call/put options, and interest rate swaps. (However, he still never really talked about what swaps and options are beyond the basic definitions and ideas.) Knowing that, the obvious strategy you should adopt when taking his class is to read about the underlying topics outside of lecture, and use the lecture ONLY for problem solving strategies. Getting back to my first point, if I were to evaluate him as a typical college professor, then he would be average at best, because students clearly have to spend a lot of time in addition to the lectures to get all the concepts. However, let me remind you that any young actuary will say that the rule of thumb is 100 hours of studying per 1 hour of test time (that's 300 hours of studying for the FM). After taking Kong's class, I'm relatively confident that the time I spent on his class throughout the quarter (less than a hundred hours) plus a few extra hours will be thoroughly enough to pass the exam. In fact I know of people who already passed the exam after taking Kong's class, having studied no where near the recommended number of hours. This is because Kong provided so many tricks to help approach all the different kinds of questions, and whether he explains each of his brilliant tricks or not (he doesn't), you will have all the tricks on your notebook at the end of the quarter. That is why in the end, I still must say he is a good professor, because he does what he is suppose to do, which is help students pass the actuary exams. A quick summary of the grading scheme of the actual class: 20% quizzes, participation, attendance, and project (5% each), 30% midterm, 50% final. His tests (10 questions each) are conceptual on par or perhaps easier (but longer) than FM exam questions. He tells students the exact topic(s) each of the questions will be on before the test. His midterm average was 56%, and I dare say the final average was no better (because it was slightly harder). In conclusion, if you want a typical upper division math class, then run far far away with your proofs tucked between your legs. But if you truly are interested in being an actuary, and you want to get a taste of what studying for the SOA exams are like, then there's nothing quite as good as a Kong quarter.
Most Helpful Review
He cares about his students, but his teaching style is ineffective for anybody who expects the professor to actually TEACH. His class is for people who have already learned the material and want to learn shortcuts for the exam. If you haven't already taken the MLC, or haven't studied extensively for it, don't expect to learn the concepts. Expect for him to race through practice problems referring to formulas that he shortly introduced in the first 5 minutes of class as handouts were being passed around. Lets put it this way... you'll either love him, or you'll hate him.
He cares about his students, but his teaching style is ineffective for anybody who expects the professor to actually TEACH. His class is for people who have already learned the material and want to learn shortcuts for the exam. If you haven't already taken the MLC, or haven't studied extensively for it, don't expect to learn the concepts. Expect for him to race through practice problems referring to formulas that he shortly introduced in the first 5 minutes of class as handouts were being passed around. Lets put it this way... you'll either love him, or you'll hate him.
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Most Helpful Review
Three words: WORST PROFESSOR EVER No joke, this guy is so bad, and i have had a lot of bad math professors at UCLA. His teaching style is very "unique" as some people like to say, where as i just call it awful. He stands doesn't really lecture just does problems as fast as he can. He does not read the question just starts writing a formula on the board and then says "and the rest is just details" and moves on... Good luck with this guy, my opinion he should just go back to working as an actuary because he is not doing the future of the profession a favor by teaching it
Three words: WORST PROFESSOR EVER No joke, this guy is so bad, and i have had a lot of bad math professors at UCLA. His teaching style is very "unique" as some people like to say, where as i just call it awful. He stands doesn't really lecture just does problems as fast as he can. He does not read the question just starts writing a formula on the board and then says "and the rest is just details" and moves on... Good luck with this guy, my opinion he should just go back to working as an actuary because he is not doing the future of the profession a favor by teaching it
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