MATH 170A
Probability Theory
Description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Requisites: courses 32B, 33A. Not open to students with credit for Electrical Engineering 131A or Statistics 100A. Probability distributions, random variables and vectors, expectation. P/NP or letter grading.
Units: 4.0
Units: 4.0
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Most Helpful Review
Winter 2016 - Professor Heilman is a very organized and engaging instructor. All lecture notes are posted online before the first day of class. All relevant topics are carefully discussed, and practice problems are well designed to help students master the material. Lecture notes and homework problems are very helpful when preparing for exams. In office hours, Professor Heilman is very willing to clarify concepts and answer questions regarding homework problems. Even though the exams are a little challenging, Professor Heilman will provide a very generous curve for the class. I would highly recommend taking any math class with him!
Winter 2016 - Professor Heilman is a very organized and engaging instructor. All lecture notes are posted online before the first day of class. All relevant topics are carefully discussed, and practice problems are well designed to help students master the material. Lecture notes and homework problems are very helpful when preparing for exams. In office hours, Professor Heilman is very willing to clarify concepts and answer questions regarding homework problems. Even though the exams are a little challenging, Professor Heilman will provide a very generous curve for the class. I would highly recommend taking any math class with him!
Most Helpful Review
Spring 2021 - *Also for 170E* If I can sum up this class and this professor in three words it'll be: easy but tedious As the other reviewer stated, be prepared for hours and hours and hours of homework. In fact, I noticed that the professor simply assigns EVERY SINGLE ODD IN THE BOOK for the homework. Since every single odd is assigned, the hw sets will almost always include some of the stupidly hard proof problems that you have no choice but to look up the solution for. I didn't find lectures to be that helpful for the hw as Professor Needell gives fairly simple examples that do not help at all for the more difficult problems in the book. In addition, every now and then a coding problem is assigned IN ADDITION TO EVERY SINGLE ODD IN THE BOOK, but I didn't find them to be that hard, and they were actually pretty fun to do. The tedious part of the coding is that if you don't know Matlab, you have to figure out how to do the equivalent in the language of your choice. The reason there is so much hw assigned is due to the fact that there are no exams in this class. Instead of exams, you have two projects to do that replace both the midterm and final respectively. This sounds great until you get the project and realize its just a take home exam. The take home exam was long and tedious, with some coding problems. Sometimes I wished that we just had exams instead, as I would much rather take a 24 hour exam (COVID) than an exam that I have to do over a course of a couple weeks. That being said, the projects weren't hard, just tedious. Overall, my review may sound like a lot of complaining, but I'm just saying it how it is. It's easy for me to look back and say "oh the class wasn't that bad" but in reality, I and probably every other person in my class had to spend way more time on this class than is necessary for 170E. So yeah, easy class, most people probably got A's, but it comes at a huge time committment. So you decide if it's worth it or not. TLDR: EASY BUT TEDIOUS
Spring 2021 - *Also for 170E* If I can sum up this class and this professor in three words it'll be: easy but tedious As the other reviewer stated, be prepared for hours and hours and hours of homework. In fact, I noticed that the professor simply assigns EVERY SINGLE ODD IN THE BOOK for the homework. Since every single odd is assigned, the hw sets will almost always include some of the stupidly hard proof problems that you have no choice but to look up the solution for. I didn't find lectures to be that helpful for the hw as Professor Needell gives fairly simple examples that do not help at all for the more difficult problems in the book. In addition, every now and then a coding problem is assigned IN ADDITION TO EVERY SINGLE ODD IN THE BOOK, but I didn't find them to be that hard, and they were actually pretty fun to do. The tedious part of the coding is that if you don't know Matlab, you have to figure out how to do the equivalent in the language of your choice. The reason there is so much hw assigned is due to the fact that there are no exams in this class. Instead of exams, you have two projects to do that replace both the midterm and final respectively. This sounds great until you get the project and realize its just a take home exam. The take home exam was long and tedious, with some coding problems. Sometimes I wished that we just had exams instead, as I would much rather take a 24 hour exam (COVID) than an exam that I have to do over a course of a couple weeks. That being said, the projects weren't hard, just tedious. Overall, my review may sound like a lot of complaining, but I'm just saying it how it is. It's easy for me to look back and say "oh the class wasn't that bad" but in reality, I and probably every other person in my class had to spend way more time on this class than is necessary for 170E. So yeah, easy class, most people probably got A's, but it comes at a huge time committment. So you decide if it's worth it or not. TLDR: EASY BUT TEDIOUS
Most Helpful Review
Fall 2020 - No exaggeration, this is definitely the hardest Math class I've taken at UCLA - much moreso than 115A, 131A, 164, etc. After the math department reworked Math 170A/B, I was definitely taken aback! That being said, Iseli is a great professor. She's super engaging and cares a lot about student learning. She is really helpful with office hours, runs extra workshops for students, and really responds to student feedback. In general, I think she's an amazing professor and would strongly recommend her as a math prof! But, the workload and tests were really rough. Iseli does try her best to prepare you for the class, but if you don't have as strong of a math background - in competitive math, etc. - I think this class will definitely be tough.
Fall 2020 - No exaggeration, this is definitely the hardest Math class I've taken at UCLA - much moreso than 115A, 131A, 164, etc. After the math department reworked Math 170A/B, I was definitely taken aback! That being said, Iseli is a great professor. She's super engaging and cares a lot about student learning. She is really helpful with office hours, runs extra workshops for students, and really responds to student feedback. In general, I think she's an amazing professor and would strongly recommend her as a math prof! But, the workload and tests were really rough. Iseli does try her best to prepare you for the class, but if you don't have as strong of a math background - in competitive math, etc. - I think this class will definitely be tough.
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Most Helpful Review
Professor Kim is a very professional instructor. His lecture is very organized and easy to follow. By using enough examples, the concept he taught are easy to be grasped. He replies the emails on time and gives a lot of hint on his homework. Most importantly, he provides practice exam and study guide for midterm and finals which are extremely helpful. As a student in UCLA, I do feel flattered to have a math professor who provides study guide and a whole lecture for review without any students ask for it! Overall, he is a good professor and I would not mind to choose him again if possible.
Professor Kim is a very professional instructor. His lecture is very organized and easy to follow. By using enough examples, the concept he taught are easy to be grasped. He replies the emails on time and gives a lot of hint on his homework. Most importantly, he provides practice exam and study guide for midterm and finals which are extremely helpful. As a student in UCLA, I do feel flattered to have a math professor who provides study guide and a whole lecture for review without any students ask for it! Overall, he is a good professor and I would not mind to choose him again if possible.
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