Professor
Nicolas Christou
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Most Helpful Review
Christou is one of the best lecturers here at UCLA. I can honestly say I still use some of the stuff I learned in his class for my other classes. His tests are extremely tough and they require a lot of your KNOWLEDGE, not your memory. Yes, he allows open notes but if you don't know the material then your notes are of no use to you. You have to study for his tests as if you aren't allowed to use notes. You won't need the text for his class, and personally I think he should write his own text (if he hasn't already). He's absolutely brilliant, funny, all-around great. The greatest thing about his class is the satisfaction of knowing you've actually LEARNED and what you've learned doesn't go away after the final.
Christou is one of the best lecturers here at UCLA. I can honestly say I still use some of the stuff I learned in his class for my other classes. His tests are extremely tough and they require a lot of your KNOWLEDGE, not your memory. Yes, he allows open notes but if you don't know the material then your notes are of no use to you. You have to study for his tests as if you aren't allowed to use notes. You won't need the text for his class, and personally I think he should write his own text (if he hasn't already). He's absolutely brilliant, funny, all-around great. The greatest thing about his class is the satisfaction of knowing you've actually LEARNED and what you've learned doesn't go away after the final.
Most Helpful Review
Winter 2026 - Ok look, there are positives here. Professor Christou is obviously a very nice man who is extremely available to his students, even holding office hours on Saturday, and the curve on the tests is extremely helpful. That's about where the positives stop though. First, this class is "applied" geostatistics in name only. Basically everything you are going to do in class and on the exams is deriving estimators and then re-deriving estimators, and then occasionally running some R code in the Homeworks and Labs. As for the exams, like other reviews of Christou for other classes have noted, this man's tests are likely something out of a torture manual. Three exams, closed notes, two hours outside of class for the midterm and you *still* have class the day of the exams. The exams do not actually measure whether you have understood the material he has taught, instead they seem designed to identify whether you're going to be a stats PhD student or something by just ladling stuff you haven't seem on top of stuff that's worded very differently from how you learned it in class. The average on our first midterm was a 35% for instance. You'll still get probably like a B- at minimum because of the wicked curve, but it is extremely annoying to have to sit through 7 hours of exams where you feel like you have basically no idea how to do half of it. Also, maybe it was just our reader, but we received no feedback on why our answers in the exams were wrong, just indications for how many points we lost. This is made harder by the fact that Christou is really not an effective lecturer. Maybe his style works for some people but it 100% did not work for me. He would go way to fast, skip steps during the derivation, etc. Really disorganized, the sample exams and solutions he gives are not terribly helpful, yadda yadda yadda. I just found this course to be really annoying. Also, the course project that you have? The one that the syllabus says you will discuss regularly? Yeah you are not going to discuss that at all until it is sprung on you again at the end of the quarter while you are trying to cram for exams and final projects in other classes and all that jazz. Anyway, tldr, I would not take this class again.
Winter 2026 - Ok look, there are positives here. Professor Christou is obviously a very nice man who is extremely available to his students, even holding office hours on Saturday, and the curve on the tests is extremely helpful. That's about where the positives stop though. First, this class is "applied" geostatistics in name only. Basically everything you are going to do in class and on the exams is deriving estimators and then re-deriving estimators, and then occasionally running some R code in the Homeworks and Labs. As for the exams, like other reviews of Christou for other classes have noted, this man's tests are likely something out of a torture manual. Three exams, closed notes, two hours outside of class for the midterm and you *still* have class the day of the exams. The exams do not actually measure whether you have understood the material he has taught, instead they seem designed to identify whether you're going to be a stats PhD student or something by just ladling stuff you haven't seem on top of stuff that's worded very differently from how you learned it in class. The average on our first midterm was a 35% for instance. You'll still get probably like a B- at minimum because of the wicked curve, but it is extremely annoying to have to sit through 7 hours of exams where you feel like you have basically no idea how to do half of it. Also, maybe it was just our reader, but we received no feedback on why our answers in the exams were wrong, just indications for how many points we lost. This is made harder by the fact that Christou is really not an effective lecturer. Maybe his style works for some people but it 100% did not work for me. He would go way to fast, skip steps during the derivation, etc. Really disorganized, the sample exams and solutions he gives are not terribly helpful, yadda yadda yadda. I just found this course to be really annoying. Also, the course project that you have? The one that the syllabus says you will discuss regularly? Yeah you are not going to discuss that at all until it is sprung on you again at the end of the quarter while you are trying to cram for exams and final projects in other classes and all that jazz. Anyway, tldr, I would not take this class again.
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Most Helpful Review
Spring 2018 - My favorite class with my favorite class at UCLA. Very applicable material to real life situations and super helpful knowledge to spill upon during interviews. The tests are difficult but not impossible and Professor Christou always curves VERY generously. Like the other person said, the workload is a bit heavy at times (1 hw due/week and sometimes a project update (coded in R) due) but its not unbearable and Professor Christou has always helped me through problems I don't understand during OH (which is has every single day and on weekends before exams - amazing). He doesn't really care about deadlines but rather puts a focus on students well being and understanding of the material. I appreciate this a lot.
Spring 2018 - My favorite class with my favorite class at UCLA. Very applicable material to real life situations and super helpful knowledge to spill upon during interviews. The tests are difficult but not impossible and Professor Christou always curves VERY generously. Like the other person said, the workload is a bit heavy at times (1 hw due/week and sometimes a project update (coded in R) due) but its not unbearable and Professor Christou has always helped me through problems I don't understand during OH (which is has every single day and on weekends before exams - amazing). He doesn't really care about deadlines but rather puts a focus on students well being and understanding of the material. I appreciate this a lot.
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Most Helpful Review
Nicholas is a great teacher. He works very hard to prepare for class and to thoroughly present the material. His class is also a good mix of both theory and application. I actually generated a lot of R code that I will be able to reuse for other projects. Overall, I enjoyed Nicholas' class quite a bit.
Nicholas is a great teacher. He works very hard to prepare for class and to thoroughly present the material. His class is also a good mix of both theory and application. I actually generated a lot of R code that I will be able to reuse for other projects. Overall, I enjoyed Nicholas' class quite a bit.
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