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.

Michael is a wonderful lecturer! He wants everyone to learn something from his class. His homework problems are very useful. He is very generous and tries to understand the students. His office hours often exceed one hour.

I took this class as GE so I didn't put much effort into this class. I only went to three lectures in total and I didn't even watch the recording at all. I basically self-studied for this class. Nonetheless, Professor Mike is a wonderful person and an excellent lecturer. He gave out candies for Halloween and stress duck for midterm season. He cares a lot about students' wellness for sure. All of his exams were fair and cheatsheets were allowed, but there were some tricky questions. We also had a participation system on Campuswire, basically, you just had to ask questions and answer questions to earn reputation points, if you go way beyond you get extra credit. The lab sections were ok but really boring (I hate coding). You can only miss out on one lab section without being penalized. Overall, try to go and pay attention in lectures, Professor Mike offers a lot of resources to his students and provides almost immediate responses on Campuswire. The information and knowledge I gained out of this class continue to help me in my future coursework as a biz econ major.

DISCLAIMER: Mike Tsiang was missing, I believe due to working on his research, so we had a TA lead the class. His name was Eduordo Honig, and he was Horrible.

I am surprised that nobody wrote a review because this class was terrible. I get that it was run by a TA so that is partially why, but I didn't like that I had the expectation to take it with Mike and he just randomly went MIA without a word. Anyways, I just wanted to come on here to complain about Eduordo as he did a terrible job even if he was not a professor. Super arrogant, was not receptive to the feedback that the ENTIRE class did not like his teaching and his exams were unnecessarily hard. Anyways, I think this course did not prepare me well for upper-div stats courses with R and I am still as skilled in R as I was before I took the class. I wish I could've written a review for Mike, but Eduordo was a terrible choice for a replacement and he should NEVER teach EVER again.

Like a previous review says, Mike Tsiang was missing, so his TA Eduardo Honig fully replaced him but he doesn't have a profile to rate under. I would never wish this class upon my worst enemy. It was so hard to follow as this class was my intro to coding in R, and the homework progress from attaching files to critically thinking about complex code in like a week, it was literal hell and I was spending hours upon hours every assignment. He was terrible at lecturing and typed so fast I couldn't keep up, and expected everyone to know things even though this is an INTRODUCTION to R. Don't even get me started on exams, they felt like I was in a technical interview at Meta. The good thing is that they were take home, but don't let that fool you because it was incredibly long and difficult. The TA Danny was great though, and really tried to help as much as possible in discussion.

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!

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

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.

Easier than AP stats.

Just look at the slides which were very complete and helpful.

Dr. Michael was super chill. Loves waffles and parks & recreation

Not only he’s a good lecturer and teacher, he’s just an amazing person. He’s very nice, listens to your concerns and cares about students. The practice tests he gives before the exams are very helpful and the handouts are very clear so you’ll know what exactly is expected from you to know. Take him!!