Surprisingly, the test focuses heavily on minutiae stuff. Rather than testing knowledge on applications and concepts of R, the exam feels more like a collection of trivial R details. Miles said that he would test on details since it would be essential to know in interviews, but the exam material was just way too trivial. Would companies really emphasize on knowing the difference between the types of c(1, 2, 3, 4, 5) and 1:5? Also, R syntax is unfriendly to those who are from programming languages like C/C++, which can cause confusions at times.

Gotta love Chen.

Surprisingly tough class - no longer take home exams but rather 1 midterm, 1 final and approx. 6 hw - depending on what he has time for. I don't believe he curves the class. Dedicate more time than you think you should for the class and make sure to memorize all the minutiae details from the course material and R and then I think you'll do well in this course.

I have always heard great reviews of Chen but as I took his class this quarter, I find it understand why so many people rave about him? He's a good lecturer, its obvious that he's passionate about the topic and we do appreciate that he podcasts his lecture on youtube. On the other hand, his midterm was not fair - we were tested on things we would never be tested on in R. And he no longer does take home test, we had a final in which he graded very strictly on. He seems hard to approach during office hours and came off as annoyed when I asked him a question. Maybe he had an off day or two, but not the greatest impression. We don't seem to be tested on our hw projects, which are very time consuming and the grader takes a really long time to grade and thus its hard to see what we did right / wrong. Maybe he's better for lower div.

Miles Chen is one of the best professors in this school and he is always passionate!

Miles is one of the BEST professors I've had at UCLA. He is extremely smart, clear in his lectures, available for help, and reasonable in grading. The HW exercises actually helped me better understand the material. Simulating a tic tac toe game or a user prompted monopoly game were challenge and time-consuming. But it enhanced my understanding and ability to apply R code to create real programs.

Miles is very approachable. Although his class was challenging, I have learned and retained what he taught and super rewarding at the end. Despite the challenging concepts, the class was very stress-free because he deeply understood that students were human beings. You can tell Miles loves what he does and excels at it! Highly recommend!!

He is the best professor in UCLA. Lectures are super clear. Even if you miss, you can easily review his video and catch up. Homework is not hard if you can understand lectures. Normally he lets take-home exam, but still easy. Definitely take him!!!!!!!