Before taking STATS 20 with Dr. Mike, a lot of students are discussing how heavy the workload is and how terrible it might be if the TA is Jake. To be honest I was a little bit intimidated by many comments about this class.

The class is more intense than I expected, one HW each week, and it is going to take about two days to finish (learning and doing problems). But I promise you as long as you do the problems, you will have a better sense of how to be a good coder! I have to say I became a better coder because of Mike and Ian.

Don't be worried if you have trouble with getting help. Mike's Campuswire is super helpful, you can get feedback from Mike or your fellow peers within 30mins. However, you won't expect to get the exact answer, but you will be getting a lot of useful hints.

Mike always emphasizes focusing on learning other than grades. Although he tries to push all the students as much as he can, he would be very thoughtful and nice.

There's one sentence from Mike that I would never forget as a student: "Your mental and physical&mental wellbeing and integrity is always more important than grades. " I forgot the exact words but he quoted a really good saying, "Friends&family, waffle, and work are the most important threes things, no matter what the order is, work is always going to be the third one.

If you are looking for an instructor who seems to be giving easy lectures, HW's, and A's, Mike is definitely your worst choice; If you are looking for an instructor who is pushing students hard but being helpful, and you care about learning more than grades, Mike would be your best choice.

Professor Michael Tsiang was definitely hard and this was my most challenging quarter so far, but his notes and lecture videos were so well put together and clear that overall, my experience with this class was good, but it was just a LOT of work.
I believe this class has a bad rep because of a previous TA but the current TA is so patient and explained things clearly, especially with the homework problems. The beginning was definitely a struggle for me as I had virtually no experience with R and I was always confused on how to even begin the homework. The LAs were the ones that mostly pulled me through this course and once you practice a lot, the class becomes easier.
The homework is definitely a lot harder than his exams but they're done that way in order to encourage learning and they're graded on completion only, but they do hold key understanding for the tests themselves so even if you can't figure out the homework, make sure to understand why after.
The discussion also gave a lot of practice using R and even though they didn't contain many points, they are similar to what you will see on the exams and I believe it's created by the TA.
Overall, my advice going into this class is to PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRATICE. Play around with the code and see how it interacts with different commands as you will gain a deeper understanding of how it works. The LAs also host review sessions where they further go into R code.

Yes, the class is tough. But, it is extremely valuable to take the course with Mike, if you plan to go on to major in Stats and take the 101 and 102 series. He is very welcoming, super nice, and willing to really help his students in order to make sure that they truly comprehend the material... if they put in the necessary work. Go to office hours, start the problem sets (they're long!) way ahead of time and you should be more than fine for the course.

I thought Stats 20 with Mike was great! Learning how to code in R is like learning a new language, but it is because of Mike and my awesome TA Bart that I feel like I have a solid comprehension of R for the upper division stats courses to come. The class breakdown was 7 homeworks (graded on completion), 2 midterms, and a final exam. The homework assignments were difficult, but always referenced material learned in the chapter notes that Mike lectured through. What I appreciated is as someone who is new to programming is that Mike standardized this class so that everyone must use the same base level functions and structure, making this class doable as an introduction. The graders for the homework always left helpful comments on how to improve your code. The midterm exams and final were all very difficult given the time frame, but as long as you understand the notes and the examples Mike emphasizes, you will perform fine. Plus the class is scaled generously. Overall - Mike is a great guy, and you should take him if you can, especially with Bart. They are both very accommodating and caring! My advice is that you should study his notes, work through the examples, and trust your gut instinct for coding on exams! :)

The professor is a friendly person.
Take this class online (COVID-19)a lot thing may be different from before.
40% for both exam(25%better one 15% lower one) 18% Homework 30% Final exam 12% Final project
Due to the epidemic, the project was cancelled. total grade is over 88.

The time for the exam is tight. I have never completed all the questions.
Exam grade is mostly based on percentiles, top50% A to A-, 50%-75%B+/B range. End 25%B/B-/below range.
Homework can be late for 24h, no points are deducted. Although the homework is difficult, it is scored according to the degree of completion. 75% complete, you can get 100% points . No one will tell you the correct way before due day. It is for "stimulate the learning process". If you don’t have time to think, or if you don’t have any clues. Just answer your plan and ideas will get full marks.

1st exam : min~1st Qu
2nd exam: med~3rd Qu
Final exam: med

Final Grade: A-

Not much left to say that hasn't already been said. The reviews for this class are accurate unfortunately (mike is nice but the class sucks a$$). I had Bart as a TA and he was really chill and pretty funny. I would recommend him because he made this class a little better and honestly helped me get through it (not so much content wise but mental stability wise).

Now onto my advice: STUDY !! This may seem obvious to some of you, but it was completely foreign to me to study for a coding class. This class turns through a ton of material, so you need to review everything covered in the notes as well as the HW problems before the midterms and finals (this will help a TON).

I know if you are reading this you probably have to take this class and you probably have to take it with Mike. I'm really sorry and it might be scary reading all these reviews, but I promise you will get through it... just stay confident and good luck (you got this) !!

He must have changed the class since 2019, because it's definitely an average class now. He has about 4 hours of lecture/week, and the hw takes about 4 hours. 80% of the hw answers is straight from his notes on ccle, and the rest you can just ask for hints on campuswire forum. The hw is also graded on completion. And honestly, Mike is a super understanding prof, if you're stressed about grades, you can work with him to figure something out. As for the midterms, so the averages were like 60's, but the grading scale is generous:
75+ percentile = A+
50+ percentile = A-/A
25+ percentile = B/A-
0+ percentile = <B

Stats 20 with Mike is an wonderful and caring professor, and it is a great class which I highly recommend taking. Going into this class I had some concerns because of some of its low reviews that took place around 2019 and 2020, but the class has been revamped and is a lot better. The grading on homework assignments is based on completion so as long as you give it a good effort you will get credit. The TA Eduardo is also very knowledgeable and approachable in office hours and discussion. If you take this course wanting to learn R, you will get a lot out of it and finish with a good grade.

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.

It was Mike's first time teaching 100C, yet he always made organized, informative slides for each lecture and reasonable but challenging homework assignments. He also was very accommodating at the end because of everything surrounding the protests and riots. 100C gets a rep for being one of the hardest stats classes, but I felt Mike's instruction and expectations made it a very fulfilling, enjoyable experience. Really pleased to have taken it with him!