Honestly just take anyone else. She dipped out on the final and won’t respond to emails probably because she knew everyone was going to be mad at how it was not at all how she claimed it would be like. I still some how came out with an A or A- depending on how I did on the Final but her class overall was very poorly structured and taught. She does not prepare you at all for her tests and quizzes everything is self taught practically. TAs were really nice though.

Montoya was cool, but you definitely had to use the book (online built into Canvas) and do the homework to know what was going on. If you like to learn from the person speaking to you, you probably won't get a lot out of lectures. If you do all the work from the book before going to class, her lectures help clarify things for sure.

One thing I liked is that she was super receptive to feedback. A lot of students were complaining about things like content difficulty, and she listened and in some cases changed what she was doing.

My opinion might not be the same as other students (who didn't like her), but I did, so here's my review:

Professor Montoya cared about helping her students learn psych stats using R. She was very responsive to the student concerns, giving us deadline extensions for homework and sending out emails to clarify her grading scheme. She also discussed everything related to the test during class so we wouldn't have concerns about what would be covered. I don't understand why other students don't like her; she actually tried to help us learn. Overall, she was a nice professor.

The textbook was free, and you need to use it to succeed in this course. Disclaimer, though, I might have had an easier time in this course because I knew a little bit of coding in other languages and got a 4 on the AP Stats exam 4 years ago in high school so I still had some stuff stashed in the back of my mind.

The textbook had problems and activities integrated into it, which I liked, because that way you could use what you learned as you learned it. It was free and online on Canvas.

Extra credit: the professor offered points for participating in psych studies and for filling out the course evaluations.

Emails: responsive. People in the class were freaking out because she said she would use 2 grading schemes based on our grades on the quizzes but after a couple students emailed her she sent out a mass email saying she will use whatever scheme gives us the highest grade. She also ended up giving 2 homework extensions.

Quizzes: lowest one dropped. I got A's on the first three quizzes and a B (85, lowkey fell asleep a little bit during that one) on the fourth, so it was dropped. Cheat sheet allowed and she gives you an R cheat sheet so no need to memorize codes.

Midterm: like the quizzes. Studied by reviewing past quizzes and textbook, cheat sheet allowed, got a 95.

In class: fell asleep most of the time (it was an 8am). Poll Everywhere questions used for participation, the website is free. 2 total group activities that were collected, they were simple worksheets. Kind of fun.

Discussion sections: fridays. Every other week we had a quiz, and the ones where we didn't were review sessions. Didn't attend last 3 review sessions because the 2nd one was kinda useless. Heard some drama went down during the 3rd review sessions because TA's couldn't solve midterm problems in 1 minute but students were expected to.

As of right now I have a 95. The final is next week, so we will see what my final grade is, but with extra credit it should hopefully stay as an A.

Overall: nice class, didn't understand why people thought so negatively of her, didn't attend office hours because I didn't need to. Her overall grade dist. was higher than the other professor's section for 100A. Take it with her if you can :)

If you are taking this class, you should have taken stats 10 or 13 before, and if so, this class offers no new math. Having said that, it approaches the same material from the perspective of coding with R which can add a twist. I didnt do so hot on the quizes (B on all 4), however her midterm, homework and final made up for it. Her final literally had questions from the quizes. Also her poll everywhere kinda sucked, but i appreciate the sentiment of low cost materials. overall pretty chill if you are comfortable with stats 10 material.

Your perspective on this class will probably be influence by your major

Psychobiology - this wlll probably be one of your easier pre req classes. The coding in LS30A is harder than what you do with R in Psych. 100A.

Cog Sci - probably going to be one of your easier pre req classes. The difficulty of PIC or CS classes does not compare to what you do with R in this class, not even close.

Psych - probably going to be one of your tougher pre req classes if you are not specializing in computing.

I am only the third person reviewing Montoya and I am surprised to see the low reviews for her. I’m not sure my grade yet, but I do think that Amanda was a really great professor. I am by no means the smartest student or amazing at stats. On bruinwalk, I usually look for the reviews from the B and C students because Ive been really struggling in my classes at UCLA.
However, I was really happy with this professor.
These are the reasons I liked her:
-She was extremely knowledgeable about the material
-She was very welcoming to students in office hours
-She is really helpful one on one and in small group settings.
-She encouraged us to ask questions,
-She never came off impatient or annoyed. It’s evident she cares about her students
-She was energetic
-She uses slides which she would post online before.(She does take attendance in lecture thru poll everywhere, but the slides are still very helpful)
-She is very open to feedback,.
-She uses a thing called ask for me where you can submit questions anonymously totheTAs and they will ask them during lecture to the professor. I absolutely loved this.
-You get a CHEAT SHEET for EVERY SINGLE QUIZ, MDTERM, and FINAL. It is written on a regular piece of paper one sided. You will also get an additional cheat sheet of R codes given by the professor, so you don’t need to memorize codes.

Anyways, you do have weekly homework which is reading in an interactive textbook. I did like this though because it will force you to stay caught up in the class and it’s based on completion so it definitely helps your grade. You get a week to do it, you just cannot hold it off until the hours before it’s due because you will not finish and that would not help your understanding anyways. I usually would break it up by sections over a couple days, it’s reallynot daunting at all.

There were quizzes in discussion every other two weeks. I never did that great on these, but I changed how I studied for the final and I did the best I had on a test in the class. So I do think my poor quiz scores lied in my inefficient studying. I should’ve used notes from the professors slides on my cheat sheet more than my own notes.

BE GRATEUL FOR HW and POLL EVERYWERE questions.. they are both based on completion and easy points that will help your grade.

DONT BE SCARED OF R, it’s not that bad at all and I suck at programming

Go to her office hours. Hardly anyone is there and she is really helpful. It helps to explain he concepts you learn in this class out loud and discuss them.

This class will also definitely enhance your LinkedIn and resume. R is one of the most desired skills in employees for jobs right now and after taking this class you will get to put several skills on your resume relating to R which will give you an edge in internships and jobs.

The class covered a lot of concepts in stats 10 except instead of doing the math by hand you are using R. You are learning a lot more about the meaning behind your calculations s opposed to learning to find the calculations themselves.

Yes, concepts can be difficult but you are not being set up to fail. This class if fair. I do recommend this professor

Please do not listen to the people who took this class in Fall 2019 and all of them got A and A+ because today is 12/24/2019 and we still did not receive any Final grade for this class. This class was very disorganized and the professor is not confident with material and quizzes are totally different from what you learned and read in this class. I spent more than 20 hours studying for this particular class and still could not get an A.

100A is pretty doable. Basically you needed to understand and apply the concepts from the textbook (free, canvas) for the assessments. There is extra credit on quizzes/tests & also you could do the SONA experiment and get an extra 1%. Two mark schemes, so if you don't want to go to class and get the participation points as long as you do well on the exams/quizzes you'll be fine. Professor Montoya is super nice, she started to give more extra credit on the quizzes and made it so we could skip two questions and generally seems to really care about her students and their grades. I would totally take her if you're good at learning on your own from reading and practice problems. I personally find that listening to her lectures just makes me super confused about the material and I do much better when I just learn from Canvas and glance through the slides she uploads to see what to focus on.

This class is basically learning to code in R and learning a little bit of stats vocab and concepts. I took stats in high school, but that was like 5 years ago, so it didn't help much. Someone with know prior knowledge of stats should be fine! I've also had no background coding, and found R to be fine. There are homework assignments online due each week, and besides the first assignment (the first 4 chapters of the book which took like 10+ hours), they usually only took about 2-3 hours which I could finish in 1-2 days, The homework is also graded on completion NOT correctness! There are 4 quizzes, one midterm, and the final. The lowest of the 4 quizzes is dropped, but the quizzes aren't too bad, you take them in the discussion section. The lowest grade I got on them was a 95, and I only went over the homework as my studying for like an hour and made my cheat sheet the night before each quiz (yes you get a one page cheat sheet for every quiz/test. Amanda is very clear and helpful and really wants her students to succeed! Some people were really demanding and rude it felt like, but she took it like a champ and kept calm. She offered a lot of extra credit and changed the ways quizzes were to accommodate concerns of students. There's also easy participation and poll everywhere points, just show up to class. Overall, if you can put the 3-4 hours a work a week for the homework+studying for quiz, this class is an easy A with Montoya! (Bonus: you don't have to buy anything for the class since she uses a free online textbook in Canvas and poll everywhere instead of iClickers)

Because I've never taken a stats course before (and reading past reviews), I was apprehensive about taking this class but I actually really enjoyed it. Professor Montoya is super organized and prepared when it comes to lectures. Her and the TAs are super intelligent and knowledgable about the material so help is always there for students when needed.

Here are a few important highlights:
- Attendance is tracked using iClicker; allowed to miss 3 classes without affecting grade

- Friday Zoom discussion: During Week 1, you'll be assigned a random group with 4-6 students. You'll work with that same group every week to complete your discussion activity in a breakout room.

- Midterm: 20 MCQs; allowed a 8.5x11in cheat sheet front+back; challenging but if you study hard, do the practice midterm, review past quizzes you can definitely get an A

- Final: (Optional) can opt out if you already have the grade you want

- Final Project: Due finals week; work with your discussion group outside of class time; as with any group work, there's always some people who don't carry their weight for the work; I didn't have to take the final so I didn't mind spending time to work on most of it

- Homework: one chapter on CourseKata due Sunday night; first couple weeks were incredibly dense and time-consuming but after that, it was manageable

- Quizzes: 12 Qs, 50 min to complete; weekly due Tues night; they're pretty easy and straight-forward

My advice: do all the hw + extra credit, pass all the quizzes, and lock in for the midterm so you can guarantee yourself an A and take it easy after week 6

I didn't have any experience with coding before coming into this class, but it was manageable. The class was asynchronous, and we had an "online" textbook linked through MyUCLA and module videos that would give us participation points. Instead of midterms and finals, we had weekly coding quizzes and a group final project. I believe she dropped the 2 lowest quizzes.

Overall, the quizzes were at first quite difficult, but as long as you understand the code from the textbook (I HIGHLY recommend taking notes on THE CODE and its output), you will do well on the quizzes. The quizzes often were just carbon-copies of codes, and you just had to know which was the correct code and output. The final project was alright; it really just depended on how collaborative your group was.

Overall, the class went fine, and it wasn't too difficult!