Professor
Miles Chen
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Most Helpful Review
Winter 2016 - My favorite class I've ever taken. He explains statistics in a very clear manner. I did not have to consult my textbook at all for this course - everything I learned from his lecturing made sense. I definitely hope to have him as a professor again if I take statistics courses in the future.
Winter 2016 - My favorite class I've ever taken. He explains statistics in a very clear manner. I did not have to consult my textbook at all for this course - everything I learned from his lecturing made sense. I definitely hope to have him as a professor again if I take statistics courses in the future.
Most Helpful Review
Summer 2021 - Professor Chen was super clear and helpful the entire 5 weeks of this class. You're definitely missing out if you don't take this class with him! He's pretty funny, very engaging during lecture, and incredibly passionate when it comes to teaching stats. Quizzes and the final were definitely fair and were often slightly more difficult than the homework problems assigned (when it came to conceptual questions which came up pretty often). Professor Chen also gives out solutions to most of the homework problems assigned which is great since some of them can be very tricky. My TA for the labs walked us through the coding in discussion which also eased our workload by quite a bit. Overall, this class was pretty chill and if you have the chance, definitely take other classes with Professor Chen!
Summer 2021 - Professor Chen was super clear and helpful the entire 5 weeks of this class. You're definitely missing out if you don't take this class with him! He's pretty funny, very engaging during lecture, and incredibly passionate when it comes to teaching stats. Quizzes and the final were definitely fair and were often slightly more difficult than the homework problems assigned (when it came to conceptual questions which came up pretty often). Professor Chen also gives out solutions to most of the homework problems assigned which is great since some of them can be very tricky. My TA for the labs walked us through the coding in discussion which also eased our workload by quite a bit. Overall, this class was pretty chill and if you have the chance, definitely take other classes with Professor Chen!
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Most Helpful Review
Winter 2022 - ** The quarter I took this class was partially online due to Covid reasons, your experience may be different** -- Overall, Miles Chen is a pretty good, clear lecturer. This class as a whole is also just about a useful topic in general too, and what you learn here should help jumpstart your knowledge toward data analyst and data science positions, so overall I think it's a good class to take. Note, however, that because there are pre-requisite Stats courses before this one, there's much less guidance compared to, say, Stats 20 (at least this was my experience). As someone who wasn't a very experienced programmer compared to some of my peers, I think I struggled a bit more than I'd like to admit during my time in this class. -- The grading scheme was as follows: 15% Lecture Viewing Quizzes 20% Datacamp Homework 36% Homework 25% Final 4% Campuswire Participation -- Viewing quizzes, Datacamp, and Campuswire were basically free points, please do NOT forget about and waste them! Lecture-viewing quizzes weren't class content related, they were random letters, so if you're a data science expert you can't just skirt the quizzes. Datacamp was based on completion and was easy because there are tutorials on there, and Campuswire you just needed to get 150 points, plus an opportunity for extra credit if you went further (I think to 200?). Also, the premium subscription to Datacamp that you get for this class is valid for 6 months, so you can basically keep using it the quarter after you take this class which is excellent. -- I mentioned before that you have to be more proactive and independent in this class compared to your other Stats lower divs and I think the homework reflects this. The first assignment was pretty straightforward and then it got more challenging from there. Not everything was straightforward and you sometimes had to think beyond the lecture examples, which admittedly are pretty clear but don't always directly relate to the homework. That said, reading the documentation online for the different libraries/data science technologies you're using is pretty helpful as is talking things out with peers. I didn't go to office hours too often but both Professor Chen and my TA Lucy seemed quite approachable and helpful so I'm sure that's a good way to go. Also, there were a lot of issues happening on campus the quarter this class happened that caused people mental distress, so Professor Chen was kind enough to give an extension on homework to everyone at that time. -- The final was absurdly challenging and after talking with peers afterward, I don't think I was alone in not having completed the whole exam. The topics that appeared were also not what I expected; for example, there was a much bigger focus than I expected there to be on object-oriented programming. Personally, I think the final was the worst part of this class. That said, Professor Chen was pretty understanding and adjusted the grading upward on the final. -- Overall I'd take this class again with Professor Chen, and would recommend you to take it as well.
Winter 2022 - ** The quarter I took this class was partially online due to Covid reasons, your experience may be different** -- Overall, Miles Chen is a pretty good, clear lecturer. This class as a whole is also just about a useful topic in general too, and what you learn here should help jumpstart your knowledge toward data analyst and data science positions, so overall I think it's a good class to take. Note, however, that because there are pre-requisite Stats courses before this one, there's much less guidance compared to, say, Stats 20 (at least this was my experience). As someone who wasn't a very experienced programmer compared to some of my peers, I think I struggled a bit more than I'd like to admit during my time in this class. -- The grading scheme was as follows: 15% Lecture Viewing Quizzes 20% Datacamp Homework 36% Homework 25% Final 4% Campuswire Participation -- Viewing quizzes, Datacamp, and Campuswire were basically free points, please do NOT forget about and waste them! Lecture-viewing quizzes weren't class content related, they were random letters, so if you're a data science expert you can't just skirt the quizzes. Datacamp was based on completion and was easy because there are tutorials on there, and Campuswire you just needed to get 150 points, plus an opportunity for extra credit if you went further (I think to 200?). Also, the premium subscription to Datacamp that you get for this class is valid for 6 months, so you can basically keep using it the quarter after you take this class which is excellent. -- I mentioned before that you have to be more proactive and independent in this class compared to your other Stats lower divs and I think the homework reflects this. The first assignment was pretty straightforward and then it got more challenging from there. Not everything was straightforward and you sometimes had to think beyond the lecture examples, which admittedly are pretty clear but don't always directly relate to the homework. That said, reading the documentation online for the different libraries/data science technologies you're using is pretty helpful as is talking things out with peers. I didn't go to office hours too often but both Professor Chen and my TA Lucy seemed quite approachable and helpful so I'm sure that's a good way to go. Also, there were a lot of issues happening on campus the quarter this class happened that caused people mental distress, so Professor Chen was kind enough to give an extension on homework to everyone at that time. -- The final was absurdly challenging and after talking with peers afterward, I don't think I was alone in not having completed the whole exam. The topics that appeared were also not what I expected; for example, there was a much bigger focus than I expected there to be on object-oriented programming. Personally, I think the final was the worst part of this class. That said, Professor Chen was pretty understanding and adjusted the grading upward on the final. -- Overall I'd take this class again with Professor Chen, and would recommend you to take it as well.
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Most Helpful Review
Winter 2018 - Aside from his highly confusing exam questions, the homework problems are REALLY hard. You are basically required to build extra complicated codes based on his lectures navigating basic R and some library stuff. I believe taking STATS 20 is not enough to prepare this class. Be sure to come up with decent programming skills to survive in this class. Pros : His lectures are so organized that you can easily study via the videos on CCLE and the lecture notes. He gives lots of extra credits toward the end of quarter.
Winter 2018 - Aside from his highly confusing exam questions, the homework problems are REALLY hard. You are basically required to build extra complicated codes based on his lectures navigating basic R and some library stuff. I believe taking STATS 20 is not enough to prepare this class. Be sure to come up with decent programming skills to survive in this class. Pros : His lectures are so organized that you can easily study via the videos on CCLE and the lecture notes. He gives lots of extra credits toward the end of quarter.
Most Helpful Review
Spring 2024 - Great class. Good professor, though slightly overrated in my opinion (but I'd definitely take him again lol). Odd tests. This is basically a ML class (less intensive maybe as CS). He uses his slides and explains well. He records it too. We learn the standard algos like KNN, K means, Neural nets, EM algorithm, Bayes classifier, SVM, PCA and their math behind it. He teaches the concepts well and makes it extremely concise (dims it down to make it simple to understand, maybe too simple). His homeworks are heavily weighted, so make sure to finish them well. 6 of them, each being 6%. The view quiz this quarter changed such that he'd provide the last one after the recording stopped to incentivize people to come in person. The tests are pretty weird. They are easy and seem like high school style. The thing is he doesn't give much partial credit at all. And since the style is like high school, some questions about machine learning and long math calculations are all for a fill-in-the-blank. And so even with your work, you can end up getting 0. So double check your work.
Spring 2024 - Great class. Good professor, though slightly overrated in my opinion (but I'd definitely take him again lol). Odd tests. This is basically a ML class (less intensive maybe as CS). He uses his slides and explains well. He records it too. We learn the standard algos like KNN, K means, Neural nets, EM algorithm, Bayes classifier, SVM, PCA and their math behind it. He teaches the concepts well and makes it extremely concise (dims it down to make it simple to understand, maybe too simple). His homeworks are heavily weighted, so make sure to finish them well. 6 of them, each being 6%. The view quiz this quarter changed such that he'd provide the last one after the recording stopped to incentivize people to come in person. The tests are pretty weird. They are easy and seem like high school style. The thing is he doesn't give much partial credit at all. And since the style is like high school, some questions about machine learning and long math calculations are all for a fill-in-the-blank. And so even with your work, you can end up getting 0. So double check your work.
Most Helpful Review
Winter 2018 - Easy class bc you get tested on useless things. Literally don't understand why people love Miles, I've had minimal interactions with him but when I have interacted with him, he's pretty rude and sassy. He makes you feel small. Yes, I understand that he wants to spend some lecture giving lectures on life and shiz but also I WANT TO LEARN SOME USEFUL STATS MATERIAL. class is a joke
Winter 2018 - Easy class bc you get tested on useless things. Literally don't understand why people love Miles, I've had minimal interactions with him but when I have interacted with him, he's pretty rude and sassy. He makes you feel small. Yes, I understand that he wants to spend some lecture giving lectures on life and shiz but also I WANT TO LEARN SOME USEFUL STATS MATERIAL. class is a joke
Most Helpful Review
Summer 2018 - It is very interesting to learn the Monte Carlo methods with Professor Chen. Not only will he talk about the basic concepts, but he will also show us interesting practical cases and ask us to run the code so that we can truly understand them. His class is very clear, even if I have not learned R language and STATS 100B, I can still catch up with the class. And I did get a lot of help from office hours. He patiently answered my questions and wrote a note for me to help me understand better, even if the specified time for office hour was over. I feel that Professor Chen strives to make every student understand what he wants to teach and is very happy to solve problems for you. Since I do not know R language very well, it took me a long time to do my homework at first. But our classmates helped me a lot on Piazza. Sometimes professor will also answer students' questions. The difficulty of the course depends on the individual, but as long as you listen carefully and figure out the homework, you will get the results you deserve in the final exam. I really enjoyed the class and learned a lot from 102C.
Summer 2018 - It is very interesting to learn the Monte Carlo methods with Professor Chen. Not only will he talk about the basic concepts, but he will also show us interesting practical cases and ask us to run the code so that we can truly understand them. His class is very clear, even if I have not learned R language and STATS 100B, I can still catch up with the class. And I did get a lot of help from office hours. He patiently answered my questions and wrote a note for me to help me understand better, even if the specified time for office hour was over. I feel that Professor Chen strives to make every student understand what he wants to teach and is very happy to solve problems for you. Since I do not know R language very well, it took me a long time to do my homework at first. But our classmates helped me a lot on Piazza. Sometimes professor will also answer students' questions. The difficulty of the course depends on the individual, but as long as you listen carefully and figure out the homework, you will get the results you deserve in the final exam. I really enjoyed the class and learned a lot from 102C.
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