Tsiang is an excellent lecturer and his emphasis on learning makes the class worthwhile. If you are a stats major, this class is IMPORTANT. The amount of material that is covered to prepare you for the 101 and 102 series is insane. I wish I tried a bit harder to understand the concepts because honestly I got my ass kicked in 102A. So put in the time now! I went from scoring 30s and 70s on the homework (graded on completion) and then I got my shit together and started getting 100s. PUT IN THE TIME! Tsiang pays attention to your progress, so don't focus too much on your midterm/final/homework scores. As long as he sees you are trying to understand the concepts, you will be alright!

This was the worst class I took at UCLA. I changed it to P/NP because I literally thought I was gonna fail. The highest grade I got on an exam was 35%. Yes, in the end it was curved. But the stress/depression that this class caused me was not worth anything. The TA (I had Jake) was intimidating, not helpful whatsoever, and smug! The lectures were actually super clear and the notes were helpful so you'd think it would be straightforward! But it wasn't at all...it was like learning the ABCs in class then having to write your own code for ranked choice voting for homework. For an introduction to programming class, it was absurd. They said you didn't need any prior experience coding to excel in the class but this was not the case at all. Not to be dramatic but I wouldn't recommend this class to my worst enemy

If you're here to find an easy class, go find another class lol, this will definitely take some chunk of your week to do the hw. I'll be honest, I like Michael and wow surprisingly unlike the reviewers here, Jake too. I took this when crap hit the fan with COVID. Class wasn't too hard, unfortunately I wasn't as focused as I'd like to be because you really do learn a lot in this class. If you engage with Jake or Michael during office hours or through questions on discussion boards, they will remember you! Michael's notes are very good and R has swirl which is an interactive command line platform that you go through each assigned chapter that Michael has designed. Our final project was made optional because of how hectic everything is and I am very grateful. I will say the best way to study for this class is to just plug in random crap into R and predict what the outcome is. You don't get to have R by your side during an exam and Jake expects you nail the basics. Having some computer programming experience is definitely preferred because how everything in R is stored is probably harder unless you understand that(although you'd just have to put in the effort to read more if you dont have experience). Miles sometimes likes to be cryptic with his answers because he wants you to learn(that definitely frustrated me a lot), but as long as you show that you're trying, he'll "tell" you the answer if he sees you struggling a lot.

Michael Tsiang provides notes that are very clear regarding R syntax and gives a good overview of R in general, and you should be able to do some simple data projects on your own after this class. His lectures are essentially going through the notes and code on RStudio and explaining slightly more in depth, but not by much. The homework was manageable (medium to hard difficulty), but they are graded based on optimization as well--you will get docked points if your code doesn't solve the problem in the quickest way, which is not something considered in CS 31 or 32. Tsiang was more helpful when I asked him questions in person.

On the negative side, he was slightly passive aggressive in class. He threatened to tank everyone's grades when someone took a photo of his slides during lecture against his wishes. The exams are difficult in that you have to be extremely familiar with the output formats of different inputs, which I don't think is very relevant to real-day usage where you can tinker around with code and see the output, but might be relevant to coding interviews. Most people found the exams hard, and I scored a B to B+ on both midterms and the final and got an A in the class, so it was definitely curved.

Overall, it's a good overview of R, but the exams and instructor are slightly off-putting. It'll be helpful to work through the problems and study with peers.

Don't take Stats 20 with Professor Tsiang who always has Jake Cramer as TA!!! I dropped this course on Week 2. The workload was unreasonablly large, and all homeworks and exams were very difficult. Strategies for problems on weekly homework were not taught in class, and they needed great amounts of time.

This class was such a nightmare! So much heavy, unnecessarily difficult workload that takes up what should be used as study time! The exams test on minute details that you can't really study for. The last two weeks were a complete disaster! A self study chapter, a homework assignment, and a final project all assigned in Week 9 with barely enough time to study for the final. And the worst part about the class is the professor saying crap like "Your mental health is more important than your grades" which baffles me because this class is the source of mental health problems. The only good thing about this class is the curve, but everything else was just bad.

Mike says he cares about our wellbeing, but I'd say that's complete bs. Here I sit at 3 am still doing his homework. He gives 8 questions each week and they're impossible to solve without wanting to die every single second. The TA Jake Kramer is an absolute asshole that delights in seeing his students fail. Avoid at all costs.

Stats 20 with Mike was a grueling experience, but one which I would wholeheartedly have again, as I believed that I learned a solid amount with regards to programming as well as R itself. I came into this class with no programming experience whatsoever, but Mike easily guided me through the lectures while also pausing for questions if the class had any questions.

Mike also provides an extensive amount of office hours and is always willing to help guide the students with the homework and answer any clarifying questions as well. I went to virtually every single office hour and felt like I received a good understanding of the goals of this class.

Now, the tests--both the midterms as well as the final--are difficult, but in the end, Mike tends to curve the class, so the absolute number you see is not the actual end result of the grade. The midterms were primarily difficult due to the time constraints--only 45 minutes--while the final was more difficult on a conceptual level than time-restrictive.

Overall, this class was enjoyable for me, and I disagree with claims that one needs prior programming experience to do well in this class. I believe that as long as you focus on learning and understanding the material, instead of the grade, and give an effort for the class, you will do relatively well in Mike's Stats 20.

TL;DR: Waffles, not grades.

Terrible class, insane workload for each homework and the final project, unreasonable deadlines on homework, terribly designed midterms and final (they were unfinishable for the vast majority of students), and TA Jake Kramer was very rude, unhelpful, and made you EXTREMELY uncomfortable with asking questions. Campuswire is filled with his snarky, rude comments to questions. Mike's a little bit more approachable.

I did learn a lot about R programming. But I don't think the emotional abuse from the heavy workload was necessary.

Avoid this class if possible. I know many of my friends are considering dropping a stats minor because of this class, which is what the Stats department wants I suppose. Not cool.

To start off, Mike is an amazing professor and the most dedicated and hard working teacher I've ever had. He really really cares about his students. He'll respond to emails instantly at any time of day and has lots of office hours availability. This is a tough class though. The work load is quite heavy. Coding homework every week that usually takes like five hours (obviously depends on how good you are). The exams test for a deep knowledge of the material and how code functions. The averages on the midterms were 50-60% and very time pressured. Final seems to have been about the same, though not at all time pressured. Obviously the class is scaled at the end. It seems like the top 25-30% got As and the median grade was a B. Prior understanding of CS stuff probably helps a lot in this class but even without it you can do pretty well if you put the work in. I've never taken a CS and pulled out an A- after being barely above average on the midterms. The exam multiple choice is based heavily on the lecture notes so have those down really well. Exams are way harder than the practice ones he gives you.