Super easy!! The TAs are really helpful and the professor is super sweet and not intimidating at all. They all clearly care about students. The material is also very simple at first and then gets more interesting as you go, but never more than manageable. Highly recommend this class, it was a perfect summer class

Overall I think Mike is a great professor. His class isn't as absurdly hard as some of the reviews make it seem. The homeworks definitely take awhile but if you put the time and effort into doing the homework then it definitely helps you with the tests. I definitely recommend taking the class with Mike because he's one of the few professors that I've had who seems to truly care about his students and their learning. Definitely worth it

The course difficulty has been toned down. HWs are difficult to complete and require you to think outside the box, but graded on completion so you will be fine if you put in a solid effort. Attendance at lectures is not mandatory (they are posted online), but discussion sections are. The tests are difficult, but partial credit is given and they are also curved. Mike is by far the most responsive and approachable professor I've taken a class with; he wants you to succeed.

For background, I had absolutely zero experience with any coding language, besides the 3 days I spent on codeacademy to try and prepare for this class.

I must say that for one of my first in person class and intro to code, Prof Mike made it very enjoyable and not as intimidating as I thought it would be.

For one, he is a very understanding professor, dropping a hw grade (that was based on effort to begin with), changing the grade scheme to help with grade anxiety, etc. I was even able to change final dates as a result of a test conflict!

Prof Mike is also very approachable (despite me hardly approaching him but that's because I had to commute).

The hard part about this class is probably just the homework for me. I wanted to really try my best and sometimes that wasn't enough to get through the intermediate problems. The LAs are helpful, as I went once to an office hour and got through a problem. Eddie was my TA and he was also very helpful in discussions. The midterms, while heavily dependent on the free response, were difficult but not impossible for me, so long as you study code! It's important to know what you expect to come out of a command and that method of studying was very helpful once I finally figured out how to study for this kind of class (Midterm 2 made me feel bad but I didn't do horrifically).

Overall, I do suggest that you at least watch the lectures if he continues to BruinCast, as that is what I did after I was tired of driving to school everyday for 3 weeks. Being there actively really helped me succeed as I did WAY better than I thought in terms of my coding knowledge. Definitely would live to take Mike as a professor again in the future!

Disclaimer—I took this class over the summer and online, which made the scheduling very wonky so my experiences as described below may not be indicative of a typical in-person session of this class.

Overall, this was a very good introductory programming class. No prior programming knowledge is assumed, and Dr. Mike (don't call him Professor Tsiang!) designs it such that prior knowledge of R won't even help you very much. In particular you are prohibited from using functions or structures that he hasn't yet talked about in lecture, which to me has some teaching benefits but also some drawbacks, as at times I and other students were unsure or had trouble remembering what we were and weren't allowed to use. Dr. Mike lectures in a way such that you won't just memorize a bunch of names but actively understand the theory and reasoning behind functions and structures, and his exams reflect this as they contain theoretical questions in addition to the traditional writing and debugging of code.

There were no live lectures save the introductory one on the first day. This also had major benefits and drawbacks. It was nice to be able to rewind and pause when needed, but a major downside was that it was impossible to space out all the lectures so each scheduled day would have 110 minutes' worth of content. This resulted in some days having insanely short lectures while others would far surpass two hours. Likewise, the length of the weekly homeworks tended to vary significantly, and the busiest week overall (in my opinion) was the week of the midterm. However, I wouldn't blame this on poor scheduling by Dr. Mike, I think it was merely an unfortunate consequence of the weird summer schedule.

Your grade consists of one midterm (two hours), the final (three hours), a final project, weekly homework (graded on satisfactory completion), and participation on Campuswire. Dr. Mike actually canceled the final project for us since the last two weeks were somewhat crammed, especially with the Labor Day holiday. Don't be afraid to ask him for extra accommodation if you need it, he is a very understanding professor and will try to work out a solution for you.

The assignments were extremely time consuming AND quite difficult- even for someone with significant programming experience outside of R. However- they were so satisfying to complete, and taught me so much that I couldn't get from reading notes or a textbook.

DO NOT BE AFRAID! TAKE THIS CLASS! Professor Tsiang (AKA Mike) provides all the resources (and then some) to succeed in his class. Pre-recorded Zoom lectures/comprehensive slides are posted on BruinLearn, meaning that lecture attendance isn't necessary to do well, but Mike is extremely engaging and funny so I recommend attending anyways. He's insistent that you will ONLY be tested on slide content, and he adjusts the exam content based on the class pacing. I also appreciate his lack of emphasis on grade distributions in favor of meeting student understanding--he will consider curving exam grades and reevaluating grade cutoffs at the end of the quarter. He cares deeply about his students' mental health and success in all areas, so don't be afraid to reach out if any issues arise in the quarter that may inhibit your studies and learning. In terms of course content, textbook is not necessary as slides contain everything you need to know. He loves to use (creative and funny) examples. Mike is a super nice guy who cares about his students, and this class is 10000% manageable and encouraged for first-time university students who may be spooked by the numbers.

if you have the chance to take STATS 10 with Dr. Mike, definitely do so! if you passed AP Stats in high school, this class is light work and a bit repetitive. even if you have no experience with statistics, Dr. Mike is very thorough and accommodating. all slides are posted and there are no surprises with exam content. the only semi-challenging part of this course is the labs completed in discussion. for those with zero coding knowledge, R is not a great language to begin with (not as intuitive as other languages). however, collaboration is encouraged and TAs are well-equipped to handle any questions.

prof mike is a chiller and super understanding. its clear he wants his students to do well and that he genuinely loves stats and teaching. the first half of the class up to the midterm is super light, the second half gets kind of hard and i got like a 78 on the final but still ended up with an A. the labs are confusing but you can pretty much just follow what your ta does in section/lab. overall id absolutely recommend taking this class with mike, he's a great professor

Professor Mich made the class very manageable. I thought I would have to switch out because we had to learn to "code" using RStudio. It was overall not too difficult after you figure out to just copy the TA. He also gave out ducks at the end. It was very fun and he likes teaching, just make sure to attend lectures and not get behind!