Ill go straight to the point: do not take this guy. If you can do yourself a favor of just taking 11 or 101 if there is no other professors the quarter you plan on taking 41. He's english is horrible so you wont understand anything, he only reads his slides which mostly have useless information for the class, you will only learn from viewing the office hours where he teaches how to solve the homework but not even with that you will learn the concepts. In this class you mainly learn only how to solve some of his problems, which even thought I spent over 1 month studying for the final, he gave us some new problems which with the little time (51 questions in 2 hours) is impossible to think how to solve this problems. I do not understand what is the point of doing this in order for most students to literally only answer half of the exam and getting your grade based on the curve. I had the final today, and the curve situation is that bad that my final grade can be between an F or an A as I can only hope that the rest of the class did horrible (which most likely they did as almost everyone had to guess at least 14 questions). If you say that this class is good, either you are an extreme nerd with no life or you just are kissing his a*s idk why. At least they say the curve is insane for this class.

Avoid at all cost. Good luck understanding his "ENGLISH". Only reads off from slides

-- Professor Liao suffers from the classic UCLA professor curse of having wonderful lecture notes but terrible lecturing skills. He has a strong accent and just reads off the slides, so I stopped going after the first lecture because it was a waste of my time.
-- The lecture slides were very detailed, and this class is basically a dumbed-down version of Math 170E (or its equivalents). I took 170E this quarter as well (for the Data Engineering Minor) so I learned the material more rigorously in that lecture and carried it over to this class. I had no issues on either exam (there is one midterm and one final), which were both averaged around a C. The final grade is 30% midterm, 70% final. I got a 100 and 90 on the midterm and final, respectively. The final was significantly more difficult than the midterm. You do not get any lecture notes, only a janky calculator that he provides for students (and your wits). There was optional homework (for no credit) each week, with answers posted as well. It was great practice for the exams! He also posts a practice midterm and practice final before each real exam, and the topics are VERY similar to the real exam. Understand them well, and you'll do great!
-- Also, this class is graded on a pure curve (which I have many disagreements with since it discourages collaboration significantly), with 25% getting As, 35% Bs, 25% Cs, and 15% failing. I had a few friends in the class who I studied with for the exams and it was pretty smooth sailing for me.
-- Overall, this class wasn't too bad for me, though I know many that struggled. It isn't bad, nor is it good. Ok overall. Good luck!

This class was difficult. Significantly harder than 11 imo. The lectures are not helpful. Midterm was easy but the final was significantly harder. Midterm av was like 80 and final av was like 64%. Make sure you study or hire a tutor for this class. Midterm 30% and Final 70%.

Idk, this class just has the midterm and final and that's it. The midterm was easy compared to the final, the avg was like a 78%, while the final average was like a 60%. The entire class grade is based on ranking and only 25% of the class gets A- or better which is kinda tuff. Just be prepared to put in the work the week leading up to his tests and you'll be fine. At least he has a sense of humor at times!

Selling the textbook A Brief Course in Mathematical Statistics by Elliot A. Tanis and Robert V. Hogg (Prentice Hall) for $60.
Email *************.

I took this class after Econ 144 with Rojas, and there is a lot of overlap. Professor Liao's class has a more theoretical approach, requiring you to prove certain properties of processes. The R coding is minimal, and most of the code is given to you already. The workload is low, with four lab assignments (very little work) and five homework assignments. The homework is short and the questions follow directly from lecture notes, so they aren't too bad. The grade makeup is 50% Final, 30% Midterm, and 20% Homework. The professor offers two different grading methods to determine your final grade, either based on your raw score (>=85 is an A) or ranking in the class (top 20% is an A). The exams aren't easy, but they are fair and take a few questions directly from the homework. He also allows a double-sided page of notes during the exams. During lectures, he annotates the slides with his iPad, which can cause a lot of clutter. These are usually just further explanations, so remember that the essentials are typed on the original slide. Professor Liao is very nice, and I would take another class with him again.

The first half of this course was really hard looking back. THe first half was basically just focusing on returns and statistics, stuff you would learn in econ 41 and 103 but the midterm really drills you hard on how much you can remember from 41 and 103. You need to be really good at statistics in order to do well but this class is also related to 104 and 144 since the second half gets into the higher level statistical models and their properties. The final wasn't bad, it's what you would see based on your homework and final practice tests he gives as well as stuff from the actual midterm. The homework and lab assignments are doable and are the bulk of your grade. He's very responsive to emails and helpful (I never went to office hours, had a time conflict). The curve is also generous so even if you feel like you're doing bad (like I did cause I thought I bombed my midterm), chances are most people in the class felt that way and the curve does account your performance in comparison to others. So if you want to take this class, you should take it if you want to learn more about econometrics and data science, especially if you want a focus in financial markets

his midterm was hella easy, got 30/30. Midterm was exactly like the practice midterm he gave with different number, but the problem comes when you take final. I just studied practice study guide for final as his midterm was just like the practice guide, and he also stated that the practice guide will be the good study guide for final exam but NO. His final exam was 10000x harder than the practice guide with so many advanced questions. well... good thing that he curves the grade but if you dont study with tutor which cost 50$/hour, dont expect to get 70+ in his final exam. GOOD LUCK AND HAVE FUCKIN FUJN

Liao was an incredibly frustrating professor. I don't know what the other reviewers are talking about, but his midterm is 100x harder than the practice midterm, as is the final from the practice final. This quarter he gave us the final from the previous quarter, which is a slightly better indicator of the difficulty of the exam but overall not helpful. He's one of those professors who teaches you problems one way and then expects you to know how to do them a different way that you never even covered in class.
He has an accent, but if you're used to hearing accented English, it shouldn't be a problem. He basically rewrites his online lecture notes verbatim on the board during lecture with maybe a few extra example problems thrown in. The homework problems are absolutely no indicator of the difficulty of the exam questions, even the "starred" ones.
I think part of the problem for me is that he doesn't teach the class with an aim towards what you "need to know," if that makes sense. He just gives you everything and it's up to you to pick out the formulas and such that are important. He also gives you no context for what you're actually trying to do. I took AP Stats in high school, and my professor would teach the class in terms of 'population' and 'sample,' so you kind of knew the difference between things intuitively. Liao doesn't even really use those terms.

Basically, if you can avoid taking him, do. If not, I would recommend trying to find a tutor or some sort of supplemental help.