DO NOT TAKE HIS CLASS.

It's a pretty dangerous gamble. The first four or five weeks of the quarter were DECEPTIVELY easy. We went over the most basic probability content and the midterm was just as easy. And before you know it the deadline to drop has passed and he's rushing you through the most intense areas in Stats 100A, all on a chalkboard making several mistakes, and even JUSTIFYING his mistakes until a student is able to directly call out why what he wrote was wrong, and writing tons of new symbols and notation just assuming we'd understand it.

Then, by god, that final. He didn't even cover some of the material on the final exam. He even promised us that everything that will show up on the final will come from what is covered in the lectures and homework. He actually just straight-up lied to us. Insane. I don't even know how the grading worked for this quarter because people who did better than me got B's and I ended with an A- hitting right at the median for the final. If you care about your grade, I wouldn't risk it.

On the other hand, if you match these categories:
- want a light workload (pretty simple weekly homework)
- an easy start to your quarter
- do not care about your GPA
- do not need to know Stats 100A content at all for your major (unlikely)
Then you might actually be fine with him.

Oh, and you are going to have to attend every one of his lectures. Do you know why? Because he doesn't post any notes or a single damn resource "in order to encourage attendance." Not until just before the midterm or the final.

Language Barrier. Bad professor.

Guang Cheng has got to be the worst professor I've had so far. I thought "Oh 4 bad reviews doesn't mean much" but nope, don't do it! Also don't let you be fooled by the easy content at the beginning of the class

He ultimately does not seem to care about the class. He just answers questions not very well and doesn't seem to get when students don't understand, and he constantly is like "Oh this is easy" and proceeds to breeze over an explanation of something without explaining what he is even referring to or what method he is using or what the words he just said means, and then after asking for clarification he quickly gave a useless answer and said we had to move on because he has to get to stuff.

He also didn't decide on the final until a couple weeks before.

He did not even COVER content that was on the final, and that was already AFTER removing content from the final because he did not get to it. We were warned by our TAs on the friday before our wednesday final that we would come across content Guang Cheng was going to go over the Monday two days before the final, and that we would also come across content that he would not cover at all. Not to mention, on that Monday before the Wednesday, Guang Cheng showed up 15 minutes late to class. 15 minutes late to the class where he had to teach us new content we never saw before, that would be on the final two days after.

His teaching in the class is all over the place and hard to follow, even with the textbook to supplement. You never have an idea of what he is teaching, nor what you are expected to know. (And for the latter, I don't think he knows either until he finishes writing the final)

We were all extremely confused for the week before the final as we all attempted to learn content that the TAs informed us we would have to know, using mostly online resources and a bit of the textbook, and not at all the lecture notes that he gave us at the beginning of the quarter.

Overall 0/10 would not take again, would not recommend.

Take if you want to have a funny story about how you got absolutely destroyed by a horrible incompetent professor.

After reading the other reviews for Fall 2023, I feel I should share my own thoughts.

You're probably already read the other reviews about how the professor sucks and whatever. However, remember that the people who got fucked harder by the class are more likely to write a review than the people who did fine in it. I'd like to share my thoughts on some of the negative reviews, as a person who didn't get fucked over.

Some stuff you probably should know about me:
I was part of the group whose final wasn't botched.
I took AP Stats in high school.
I attended very few of the lectures.
The amount of time I spent at a discussion was a single-digit number of minutes.

I agree that:
The first few weeks are easy and are taught way too slowly.
The midterm was easy.
The professor generally sucks at lecturing and results in lots of questions being asked.
Honestly don't bother with the lectures.

I disagree that the final contained material covered outside of lectures and homework (I'm really confused how "many people have attested to this"). I pretty much only studied for the final using the homework and provided practice problems, and did well on it. The problem I encounted on the final were all similar to previously seen homework problems, or the provided practice problems.

imo, this class is fine. Median midterm score was like around 90 (I'm not confident saying this and I can't be bothered to actually check) and the final q1, median, q3 were apparently 71.5%, 81%, and 89%.

Probably don't prioritize this professor for this class, but also if you do have to take this class with him, it's not the end of the world. Chances are they won't botch the next final. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

When I took Stats 100A with Professor Cheng for my probability requirement as a CS Major, I came in expecting to learn something new.

By the end of the quarter, I can confirm that I indeed have learned something.

It was to never touch probability for the rest of my life, and never take any course with this instructor ever again.

"If I could tell myself back in September that I shouldn't take this class unless I wanted to make myself hate probability, I would be so happy."

-Craig Tucker

After the first two weeks of going to his class, I decided to never go to lecture ever again because not only do I not learn anything in his class, but I unlearn stuff about probability. He is very bad at teaching, and when we ask questions he answers them very vaguely or not at all. He clearly has not showed care in teaching, it feels like he is teaching out of obligation and not because he wants to teach. Would never take this professor again, and because of him I hate probability, and this is a core foundation of my major.