Listen. After our second midterm, a lot of students posted very harsh reviews of Prof Tsiang. The reality of the class is that while it is hard, you will actually learn how to code in R. It is a perfect class if you actually want to apply any of this information later in your college career. Prof Tsiang is an amazing professor who honestly cares about his students. Caring about your students should not mean that he gives easy tests !! I have taken a lot of CS classes and this class is so much easier than those. Just going over the notes is enough to do the homework, while in CS classes you have legit no idea what is going on ever. And it takes a few hours a week as most classes do. In addition, he gives enough time for every assignment. I highly recommend this professor!

This might not be a popular opinion, but I think everyone is over reacting. I honestly do not think this class is as bad as everyone is making out to be. Yes, the class can be overwhelming at times especially when comparing it to other lower div intro classes. But it is not nearly as impossible as everyone makes it seem. In my personal opinion, I think if you expect to always have the answers handed to you, you are going to have a really hard time in life in general. So overall, yes it might be tougher than other intro programming classes I've taken. HOWEVER, it is NOT because Mike is a bad professor or the TA Jake is this terrible human being whose sole person in life is to make our lives a living hell. Everyone needs to calm down. They are BOTH beyond helpful and extremely good at theirs jobs! Both spend hours and hours out of their own time to help us. I would without a doubt take this class again with Mike and Jake, and plan on taking any future classes with them if possible.

In summary, if you're lazy do not take this class with Mike/Jake. If you actually want to learn and can put in minimal effort to actually attend lectures/discussions and occasional office hours then I 100% recommend.

THIS IS NOT THE SAME CLASS AS BEFORE FALL 2019. Disregard all reviews not from Fall 2019. The course has changed!! This is supposed to be an intro class, but instead this is the hardest and most challenging class ever! The lectures are easy, he just goes over notes. Theres a place online to ask questions, which is very useful and necessary at times. However, the weekly homework takes about 12 hours to complete, and thats after getting stuck 100 times and wanting to slam your face against the wall. This is not a stat class, it's a coding class. I would definitely recommend having coding experience before taking this class, I don't know how those without it are surviving. First midterm is bad, but doable. Second midterm is trash, nobody finishes and nobody can answer the short answers. There were also miscellaneous questions that are very knit-picky. Don't take this class with other hard classes, and don't take it if you don't have to. This is the class where the lectures are easy but the homework and tests are insane. Don't know why they changed the class so much, it's just brutal.

Mike and Jake are nice and helpful. Class is a lotta work but the reviews exaggerate. Mike will answer your campus wire questions at 1 am and he has three hour office hours three times a week. Jake will stay for hours past his office hours to try and help everyone.

Yes the class is a lot of work. I never coded before and the weekly homework takes me 10-12 hours. But, I think that Mike is an amazing professor (clear and funny lectures, bruincasted, posts super detailed notes online) and Jake will go out of his way to help you on any problem if you ask him during office hours.

the best teacher ever at UCLA! as a comm major student I took his class as a minor requirement. haven't taken any "math" related course since high school so I was super scared in the beginning. he made the course fun and easy to understand, His handouts are very straightforward and have all things you need. however, the speed is a little fast for me to follow in class so I always go back to look at the videos again. pay attention to the little things in the lectures he likes to test on those. reach out for help if you need anything, he responds really fast and is always super understanding. I ends up with a B+ cuz I wasn't in the mode for final and I m satisfied.

anyways, best prof

Never left my trace on Bruinwalk before, but I am writing one for this class as almost all the reviews for Fall 2019, most of which have been unfavourable, were posted before official grades were released and hence I feel that they may not convey the fairest representation of the class as a whole...

You probably heard/seen what others think about the course solely in terms of workload/difficulty - and yes, I concur - the assignments are pretty tough and time-consuming - and this I say as someone who has taken CS30/31, for your reference.

There are weekly homework assignments (total 9) that, for me took around 10 hours on average for each and a final project around week 9/10 that I think spent good 30+ hours on (yes during week 10 & finals week but we were given two weeks and even two-day extension in the end).

Talk about exams - the median for the first midterm was about high 50s and the second one was about low 50s. Standard dev. was around 20 for both exams. The final exam was much less nerve-wracking in terms of time.

The exam questions were focused on surprisingly minute details that you've probably never encountered before unless you have memorised every single detail of the materials prof. Mike posted on CCLE and did extensive experiments on your own. Bottom line the exams really teach you a lesson that the world of R is extensive and you probably still have a long way to go before labeling yourself as a true expert.

Here's the thing though. Having spent loads of time and effort on this course alone and been stressed out pretty much the whole quarter, I still have an overall positive impression of the course. For starters you learn lots - this is inevitable as you are to be faced with loads of assignments and, well, the best way to learn anything is by getting your hands dirty. Secondly the faculty members - the prof. and the TAs - do care about your learning experience, and this I say based on the following reasons

1. Both the professor and TA (Jake for me) offer plenty of office hours (like more than any other courses I've taken).
2. They really want you to learn lots and be prepared for future endeavours; prof Mike threw in loads of outside learning materials on CCLE and Jake always went great lengths to cover more than what were covered in lectures
3. Prof Mike really does mean when he says that he cares about our mental/physical well-being. He's always willing to listen to our concerns and suggestions and takes measures when necessary... and of course, ah, the curve - the curve is the prime evidence that prof Mike really does care about your grades.

For those who haven't taken yet - chances are this course is tough and you will likely be putting in heck tonnes of time on this course unless you've already got sturdy background in R. You're a sailor on an adventure and there's thunderstorms called assignments and exams waiting for you - but fear not, cause you are not sailing alone and in the end your journey shall be rewarded with invaluable treasures called knowledge and you'll be compensated by the curve for all the damages your ship sustained. Just keep pushing yourself and weather the storm... Good luck to all future sailors out there...

Thank you very much prof. Mike and TA Jake for all the things they've offered.

This review is meant for people with programming experience

I took this as a 3rd year CS major, and I found that my programming experience helped a lot. The class moves relatively slowly compared to cs32 or cs35L, which makes R easier to pick up.

Projects take about 3-5 hours/week, and are a series of 1a,1b,1c... questions that ask you to implement length() or greatest_common_denominator(), stuff like that. I never needed to go to Jake's discussion; most q's get answered quickly on Campuswire.

Mike is an awesome prof-- very accommodating, very understanding of ppl's situations so if you need an extension or something, you'll feel comfortable asking for it.

Exams were extremely fast paced, there were like 9? questions in 50 minutes. They're similar difficulty as the HW, and everyone does poorly so there's no need to stress-cram especially if you have prior programming experience.

Overall, pretty average class, easier than cs31 imo, so don't be afraid to take this with your hardest class.

Michael truly concerns about students' learning. Whenever a student asked how he would give our grades, he said like 'Don't worry about your grade too much, but focus on your learning.' After the final, it is turned out he is pretty lenient on grading. His lectures and slides are well-organized and easy to follow up even when you miss a day.

Regarding the exams, both midterms and final were ALL multiple choice questions and somewhat tricky. You should know every single detail of R in order not to spoil the tests.

Currently in this course as a freshman and don't know what I should do to survive. Literally prepared for midterms and homework for a long time. I can't remember a single week not putting more than 10 hours in doing HW, usually it is around 15. I had almost no programming experience before this and this is my first ever coding class, and I don't recommend Stats 20 to ANYONE who doesn't have much coding experience. Even if you do, I strongly recommend you to self-learn R before coming here otherwise it would be a disaster. Trust me you can't imagine how much details you need to remember for the midterms. Don't ever trust any comment before Fall 2019.

Redacting my past review. The stats dept is dealing with rapid growth and has some bad actors, which is made clear by this course. Do not take this course if you do not need to, or make sure to not take it with Tsiang and Jake.