Reviews for STAT400

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Dmitry Dolgopyat STAT400 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 02/21/2024	Dolgogyatt is a wonderful professor. I can't understand his accent but the class was not too bad.
Mestiyage Gunatilleka STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 02/20/2024	Exams were very easy, no quizzes. Only thing that took time was the R Projects which were reproachable. However the grading for R Projects was very lax. STAT400 has the mot applicable stuff from math so far and the professor teaches it at the most surface level possible. The professor cared about the students but I don't think he cared about us actually learning the material which is understandable since this class is just treated like a roadblock on the way to getting a CS Degree by most people taking it. I recommend taking it for an easy credit but I would personally take STAT410 if I actually wanted to learn stat and prob. theory a little in depth.
Dmitry Dolgopyat STAT400 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 02/16/2024	If you are someone who likes learning things on your own, this professor is perfect. He makes all of his weekly quizzes EXACTLY like one of the homework problems, just with changed numbers. He also has quiz drops at the end of the semester if you mess up somehow. He also bases the exams EXACTLY like the practice problems he provides, which is extremely helpful. He lets you take notes into exams. TAs are amazing too. Great professor, went to 2 lectures than never again, but extremely fair class, everything was known ahead of time.
Dmitry Dolgopyat STAT400 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 01/19/2024	I had Dmitry for STAT400, and it was definitely harder than what my friends said the other professors were like. However, it was far from impossible. My advice: 1. Attend lecture, sit in the front row, and try to follow along as best as you can. This is helpful especially before the tests, because he will often give hints about what will be on them and what to focus on. I find that a lot of the people complaining about Dmitry barely ever went to lecture.... and it doesn't usually turn out well for them. 2. Before class, I always read the textbook section, which made following along with him during lecture a lot easier. 3. Make sure you understand the homework, since the quizzes are on questions from the homework. If you understand the homework, the quizzes (which are ~30% of your grade) are basically a free grade boost. 4. Make at least one friend in the class, and you can work through the practice problems/homeworks/study together. Some other notes: Dmitry is very generous with grading -- people say he doesn't curve, however 95% and above is an A+, and he drops the 2 worst quizzes out of your 10-11 quiz scores. His practice problems are hard, but they prepare you for the test very well because the tests are FAR easier. Dmitry will never throw you a curveball on any test -- they are all very fair and reasonable. On the tests themselves, he gives generous amounts of partial credit if you show your work or even so much as just explain what you would do/your thinking. Dmitry is very passionate about statistics, although he isn't the best at teaching, especially to beginners. I think this is partially because he is extremely intelligent about the subject. But, people are super dramatic about the difficulty of this class. I am no math genius, but with a little bit of work, I was able to comfortably get a good grade. Also, he is a lovely person. And he's written several books! Cool!!!!
Jonathan Fernandes STAT400 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 01/16/2024	Excellent Teacher! Truly cares about his students. He provides plenty of review before exams and provides us with all the necessary materials in order to succeed his class. Yes, the exams are difficult, but Fernandes expects a level of hard work, especially when he is providing all of the materials to succeed in his class. His review exams were basically 80% of the actual exam, which was a huge plus! Overall, great teacher, great person! Recommend!
Jonathan Fernandes STAT400 Expecting an A- Anonymous 01/07/2024	Boring AF, explains poorly, HW hella long, gives identical practice exams to real exams (but they are HELLA long, esp practice final had like 36 problems). Literally got carried by TA's who did parts of the homework for us, parts of the practice exam, and explained the content in 1 hr a week. He had to curve final exam by ~10%, . His curves make the final statistics look good, but this was harder than CMSC330 and CMSC351. TA's came in clutch, and the class was survivable, but it was by no means a free A.
Dmitry Dolgopyat STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/31/2023	Halfway through I stopped going to lecture at all. He’s very knowledgeable and by no means incompetent, but his lectures are so confusing and unbearable I couldn’t bring myself to understand anything. At least everything’s on WebAssign so it’s pretty easy to self study
Mestiyage Gunatilleka STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/30/2023	Super great! He is a great lecturer and records his lectures. His exams are similar to his practice as well.
Jonathan Fernandes STAT400 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/23/2023	Execllent professor! Generous curves on each assignment and even exams. He listens to his students and is very open-minded!
Jonathan Fernandes STAT400 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/22/2023	Excellent Professor! He teaches clearly, records lectures, and does everything to make a comfortable environment for his students. We had two midterms which were 105 points worth of questions, but he entered the final grade out of 100, effectively giving a 5-point curve. He made the final exam with 210 points worth of questions; he was going to enter our final scores out of 200, but upon further reflection and request from students, he made the final out of 180 points, effectively giving a 30-point curve on the biggest portion of our grade! Also, he provided a sample exam before each major exam in this class, and 80% of the content from the sample exams was put on the final exams, with minor modifications. Admittedly, this class is difficult and does require a couple of hours of your time every week, but Jonathan does expect a level of hard work from his students. Homework: Homework is a bit difficult, but the TAs basically show you how to solve each problem in discussion, so it is important to attend discussion. Quizzes: We also get weekly quizzes on Friday, but they are online and you are given one attempt to retake it, which is pretty nice. R Projects: We were also given 4 R Projects across the semester, which are pretty easy, but tedious. However, TAs are very lenient with grading and this should be an easy 100 if you do the assignment and submit it on time. Overall, I think Jonathan provides all the necessary tools to succeed in his class. Yes, there is some work and some difficulty in the class, but Jonathan has an expectation from his students and expects them to meet it tox succeed in his class. If you do the work and study well for exams with the sample exams, you should be fine. He is very open-minded and will provide many opportunities for his students to achieve the best grades possible. At the end of the semester, we received additional curves on all of our assignments (Quizzes, Homework, R-Projects), another indication of Jonathan's generosity and willingness to help. Overall, if you work hard enough, you will succeed.
Jonathan Fernandes STAT400 Expecting a C- Anonymous 12/22/2023	hes a great teacher. doesnt record his lectures, but hes taught stat400 online so he has a bunch of youtube vids you can just catch up with. he runs a scribbl notebook for lecture notes. very understanding professor and will accommodate as needed. online quizzes and homeworks are kinda timed weirdly, so weekly homeworks are due at noon on wednesdays, and online quizzes are available between noon and midnight on fridays. DONT GET VIBE CHECKED. IT SAYS 11:59 AM, NOT PM. also, hes super super super nice. during the week that the stadium suicide happened, he extended homework and project deadlines by a full day and made a public scribbl for people to write encouraging thoughts. massive W. so why the 4 star and not the 5 star? well, his exams are very fair, but whereas some other stat400 profs allow student-made cheat sheets, he provides u with a single formula sheet with the bare essentials. plus, exam questions are homework/quiz/practice exam questions with the numbers or details changed. ok, not too bad. what's wrong? well, for our final, he released a 36-question practice exam. sure, a lot of great review material. the problem: the exam, made of 9 questions (he announced there would be 7 or more beforehand) was almost half based on content covered in the last 2 weeks before the final (he said there would be 2 or more questions on this material). ok, not the worst, right? because all those questions were on the practice exam? no! the exam was mostly made of the HARDEST variants of the HARDEST questions on the practice final. i have never seen so many people look defeated after an exam. the entire class flunked this final SO BADLY that not only was the final exam grade curved 10%, the frikin final grade distribution was curved by at least 4% (i know, because i passed with a 66%). so, minus a star for giving me a heart attack, jesus christ wtf (apparently he was really busy and the TAs may have had more of a hand in the exam than he did)
Dmitry Dolgopyat STAT400 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/21/2023	His lectures are generally unhelpful, and I basically stopped attending after the first midterm. You will end up teaching yourself a good bit of the material. Despite this, the TAs are very helpful, and the practice materials (non-graded worksheets and sample midterm problems) are good preparation for the exams. Said exams are often easier than the practice and as long as you keep up with the homework and work through/understand how to solve the sample problems, you will probably be fine. He also lets you have one sheet of notes for each midterm and three sheets for the final.
Jonathan Fernandes STAT400 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/21/2023	A great guy who runs a decent class. His homework starts out pretty easy but progressively gets pretty difficult. The R projects are just modifications of old ones you can find if you look hard enough. His exams are okay, they're very similar to the practice problems. His final, however, was god-awful. He gave 36 practice problems for the final, only maybe 20 of which had some solution (somewhere). They were compiled from various homeworks and he refused to post a collective solutions document leading to students scrambling to find them and ultimately having to band together and make a collective solutions document. While this was incredibly annoying and made studying much more painful that was nothing compared to his final. His final was longer than he told us it would be, far more weighted towards the newest material than he promised. Within 15 minutes after the final about 40 people were begging for a curve (which he did give) on piazza. He later also lowered cutoffs. Something should be said about how nice of a person he is outside of writing exams. He often made funny parallels to how the material could be applied in the real world, gave motivational speeches, and genuinely seemed to care about our mental health and well-being. Take stat with him but do not underestimate his exams.
Dmitry Dolgopyat STAT400 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/21/2023	If your expecting to learn everything from lecture than your out of luck cause they aren't good. Besides that the course structure is good. Quizzes worth 30% of your grade are just pulled from the homework due the previous week. The exams questions are just the easier examples from the textbooks. Overall if you don't mind teaching yourself and you put in a decent amount of effort getting an A shouldn't be that hard.
Jonathan Fernandes STAT400 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/20/2023	Nice guy with a generous grading scheme, but lectures are not engaging and notes are hard to follow. The midterms were fair and representative of what we learned, but the final was unnecessarily difficult and was mostly based on content that was taught in the last few weeks and not very thoroughly. The average on the final was 120/205 total points but the score ceiling was lowered to 180, still an average of a D. To be fair he gave us a sample exam that was representative of the real thing, but even though there was a collective student effort to make an answer key there were some questions that nobody came up with an answer to.
Jonathan Fernandes STAT400 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/20/2023	He is a genuine guy who cares about his students. His exams, quizzes, and homeworks are not meant to trick you just test your understanding. A great professor and guy all around, its worth getting to know him because he is so passionate about teaching and getting students to understand/ grasp the material. 100% recommend
Mestiyage Gunatilleka STAT400 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/19/2023	Lectures are recorded and the notes are posted. The exams are fairly simply and the partial credit is very good. The only annoying part of this class was the R projects, so don't do the entire thing the night it's due.
Mestiyage Gunatilleka STAT400 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/19/2023	Danul sometimes goes over things too deeply or spends too long on one problem, but overall he's a good teacher. Answers questions effectively and cares about his students. There are homeworks (which can sometimes be very long), R Projects (also kinda take a while), two midterms (very fair exams, decent practice material), and a final (which was quite difficult and riddled with typos, causing him to call them out during the exam and having students redo the problem). But overall, not a bad prof. Take him.
Jonathan Fernandes STAT400 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/18/2023	Awful teacher
Dmitry Dolgopyat STAT400 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/18/2023	Smart guy but you can really tell he's not comfortable/doesn't want to teach this class in particular. First day of classes he seemed really uncomfortable and a number of students brought up the fact that they were unable to hear him within the first half of class. Despite this, I still had a hard time hearing him as he chose to wear his microphone around his neck instead of up next to his mouth. As the semester progressed it became clear that lecture was pretty useless as I couldn't hear or understand what he was saying. Although his provided sample questions were relevant to exam questions, they were riddled with typos and occasionally were missing necessary information. Even worse, the included solutions had numerous mathematical errors and steps were not adequately explained. Thankfully, the actual exam questions were free of any serious errors, but typos were still present. If you're happy with self study and a lot of staring at a "solution" wondering which shortcut he used to solve the question in one step, you'll do fine. Also, hope your TA is nice, as 30% of your grade (quizzes) is basically a dice roll on whether or not your TA wants to torture you.
Dmitry Dolgopyat STAT400 Anonymous 12/17/2023	When I signed up for this professor, I was confident that his accent would not be an issue, and it wasn't. There are many other issues, however. 1) He talks too quietly and too fast. I sat in the front row every single class, and I still couldn't hear a word he said. He only directed his lecture at two people on the right side of the lecture hall. 2) He goes into detail on proofs and details that don't matter. If you're a CS student, you know that STAT400 is not supposed to be hard. In fact, your peers who took the other professors can attest to that fact. Professor Dolgopyat loves to go into detail about the theory of statistics, and if you actually care, that's great. But, be warned that you still won't understand the topics any better. 3) He releases practice problems that stress out the whole class and doesn't go over all the worksheet problems that are actually related to the exam. 4) He DOESN'T CURVE. If you do take this professor, be prepared to diligently read the textbook and complete the worksheets he posts daily. On the first exam I got a C because I only focused on the practice midterm problems he posted and that was a mistake. Good luck!
Dmitry Dolgopyat STAT400 Expecting a B- Anonymous 12/17/2023	He's not a good professor, but as long as you do the homework and do well on the weekly quizzes (which are just a problem from the homework with the numbers changed out) you'll probably be fine, although I would still take it with a different professor since his lectures (all of which I attended) are pretty difficult to decipher.
Hatice Sahinoglu STAT400 Expecting a B- Anonymous 12/17/2023	Pretty bad. Hard to understand the accent, discussions were terrible (TA copies answers from his notes to the whiteboard), lectures are hard to follow. Test averages were terrible ~70 midterm 1, ~65 midterm 2.
Dmitry Dolgopyat STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/16/2023	These reviews scared me, but you will be fine in this class if you are good at math. Professor has a built in one point curve, quizzes are exact questions from homework, and you get to bring three formula sheets (front and back) to the final. Sure, his lectures are not the best, but you don't need them. His review guide prepares you for any questions you might see on the test.
Hatice Sahinoglu STAT400 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/14/2023	Genuinely confused why Hatice's ratings are so low. I have her for STAT400 and while she's not amazing, she is MUCH better than the alternatives. If it is between Hatice and Dimitry, take Hatice 100%. Even if it means an 8am or a 9am. Your grade will thank you. She's a sweet, caring professor with a bit of an accent, and she posts all her notes from previous semesters if you want to review. She teaches section for section in the textbook so you have that as an option too. Tests are heavily based on the worksheets given in discussion so I recommend using those to prepare.
Mestiyage Gunatilleka STAT400 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/14/2023	He is a fair teacher and grader, the way the course is structured makes sense. He clearly cares about students and wants them to succeed. Only complaint is that the class is too much structured for CS majors and it makes it hard for people who must take it for other reasons to follow along, as he assumes you already understand concepts and notation that are used in CS. Over all though, he is a good professor.
Dmitry Dolgopyat STAT400 Expecting a D+ Anonymous 12/14/2023	He's a good person, and a brilliant mathematician, but avoid at ALL costs. Don't be fooled by the people are saying that he wasn't that bad. He's absolutely horrendous. He couldn't teach if his life depended on it. Like people have pointed out, you will learn nothing in lecture, you just have to teach yourself. Since I do best by mostly learning by instruction, I am about to fail this class. Usually, I take responsibility for not performing well, but honestly, it's not on me at this point for this class. And I know some will say, "well its college in the real world nobody will hold your hand", to which my response is to shut up because I'm paying money to learn here, not to just skip lecture because it's a waste of time. This professor is a good example of increasing tuition costs but the decreasing educational standards we get. It's clear that UMD isn't paying this man enough to care about his class, as if you do see his lectures, he will literally go at his own pace as if he's just reviewing the information to himself. And that's if you can understand him. If you need some sort of instruction and want to go to UMD to actually learn, like me (and most students), I'd stay away from this class. His exams are easier than his practice exams, but his practice exams are very sloppily done. He posts the solutions, where there's spelling and arithmetic errors everywhere, and formulas are pulled out of nowhere. What he needs to do is get himself (or preferably a TA) to go through each question in the practice exam solutions, and record it. The actual questions are just so difficult and combined with his sloppiness in writing the solutions, it's just not good. Like I said, its a testament to how he's simply not getting paid enough to care. Also, no curving will be done at all, and don't listen to the responses who say his exams and practice exams are "mirror image copies" they are different and dont always test the same stuff. The quizzes are a lot more similar however. Over all, stay away, unless you're fine with teaching yourself and deciphering his practice exam solutions.
Dmitry Dolgopyat STAT400 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/14/2023	Lectures too hard to understand. Accent unable to decipher so can't understand half the information that is being taught. Sometimes handwriting is illegible and you can't actually see what he is writing even though I sat at the front of the classroom. He has a habit of speaking and then his voice fading out and then says one syllable loud then fades out again. Sample problems for exams are extremely difficult and don't even represent the exams although the exams are easier than the sample problems for them.
Dmitry Dolgopyat STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/13/2023	So Professor Dolgopyat is very knowledgeable and approachable, but is just not the best teacher. This class ended being a lot more stressful than I believe it should have been. The concepts, if relayed well, are fairly straightforward. The issue is that his lectures are often confusing. He does do examples, but often not to the extent as would be helpful. I had to put in a lottt of work to do well on the exams. I went to office hours, asked questions, and more. He is very willing to help if you go to office hours. If you don't want to read all this lol here is a quick pros/cons list: Pros: - weekly quiz is always 1 question exactly from the Webassign hw - sample problems for exams are good practice but are usually super hard, but... actual exams ended up being more straightforward - drops 2 lowest quizzes - TA's were livesavers answering questions on Piazza - final exam is same weight as regular midterms - he creates chapter summaries before exams and posts quiz and exam solutions on ELMS afterwards Cons: - confusing lectures - sample exam problems are super different than the Webassign hw's and usually very hard. they always had problems out of left-field that we had seen no examples for. some of these problems my TA didn't even know how to do at first. also there are often lots of errors in the answer keys for these sample problems. Overall, if you can get another professor I would recommend doing so. However, this class with Dmitry is doable if you are committed to putting in a lot of effort.
Dmitry Dolgopyat STAT400 Anonymous 12/13/2023	Pathetically worthless lecture. His class is effectively in 3 segments, The homework and weekly quizzes in the discussion, which are closely aligned The exams which he gives you a review sheet for (that are pretty close to the exams themselves) And worst of all, his lecture, which has nothing to offer and no connection to any other content Unintelligible lectures that are barely related to the actual graded course content, so if you do get stuck with him be ready to self-study everything.
Dmitry Dolgopyat STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/11/2023	He is not the best lecturer as the other reviews say. The worksheets he posts usually have errors in the solutions and you have to ask on Piazza whether the mistake is in the worksheet or something that you did wrong. The material isn't too bad, but it piles up on you quick. Now, I did come in having taken AP Stats so a couple of the topics towards the end of the course were familiar to me that wouldn't be familiar to people who haven't taken AP stats. In terms of grades, there is a weekly webassign that all together is worth 10%. There are weekly quizzes where they choose a random question from the previous webassign and all together is worth 30%. Additionally he drops the lowest two quizzes and homeworks. Three exams(2 midterms and 1 final) are all worth 20%, and in my opinion, significantly easier than the stuff we do in class. I would recommend finding a study group for the exams, and doing all the practice problems he assigns. If you do that, the midterms should be fine and you'll end with a decent grade in the class. However, if you don't have much experience with statistics, you'd be better off with a different professor.
Dmitry Dolgopyat STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/09/2023	Professor Dolgopyat is not as bad as the other reviews state imo. Sure, he has an accent which it makes it hard to understand him sometimes. But, going to lectures did help if I paid attention. He explained the concepts well and went through a ton of examples. Quizzes are also based of the homeworks, so as long as you do the homeworks you can get a 100 on every quiz. Exams were also much easier than the practice exams so I felt well prepared for each one. Overall, you can definitely survive this class and even do well if you put in the work. If there’s better professor, take them but Professor Dolgopyat is not bad.
Joe Engmark STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/05/2023	THE GOAT!! -> Bro did the HW in discussion (like all the TA's) explained very well, super chill, very nice, explained concepts 10x better than professor. Explained the conceptual bits very intuitively when doing the HW, which made everything easy before doing the problems (when prof fernandes did it the other way around, nothing made sense until the examples). Loved his teaching, and he's chill.
Dmitry Dolgopyat STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/05/2023	If you enjoy illegible handwriting, unintelligible rambling in a heavy Russian accent, then this class is for you. While in lecture I spent more time trying to decipher his hieroglyphics on the board than actually learning anything stat related. He rarely uses a microphone, plus He's in the armory so it's already pretty awful. The homework and quizzes are also entirely separate from the midterms and final, which are also separate from the lectures. The textbook is not the best either, although my TA was very helpful. The only good thing is that the practice midterms are very close to the real thing.
Dmitry Dolgopyat STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/03/2023	as a person he's clearly really smart and has great subject knowledge but unfortunately that means a lot of stat400 concepts seem like common knowledge to him so he doesn't explain them too well. also does way too many proofs which makes the class much harder to understand. if you've taken ap stats the second half of the course should be pretty easy for you but overall if you can find a different professor pick them lol
Dmitry Dolgopyat STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/02/2023	I feel that Professor Dolgopyat gets a bad rap sometimes from students who never attended lecture beyond the first week. After the first week, only the first two rows are filled consistently. But if you genuinely try your hardest to understand what he's teaching, you will be ok. It will be difficult, and you have to put in some hefty work on your own, but actually attending lectures really helps. Professor Dolgopyat runs through examples, and his medterms were always easier than the crazy-hard sample midterms he gave out, so I always felt prepared. His grading is very lenient too, with him dropping your two lowest quiz grades. Quizzes are based on that week's homework, so you know to expect 1 of 10 questions, and can study accordingly. Overall, not a terrible class. Give Professor Dolgopyat a chance, and you can survive this class.
Jonathan Fernandes STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/01/2023	1. Homework: First questions of hwks are easy, but the last ones are medium to medium-high difficulty. Make sure you reference his Scribbl notes, and attend discussions to ask questions to TA. Most likely TAs will give you hints or go over "practice problems" which are extremely helpful. 2. Exams: 80% of the exam comes from sample exams. Questions on the exam tend to be simpler (IMO) than the sample exam. If you want to get a good grade on the exam, *DO THE SAMPLE EXAM AND GO OVER THE QUIZZES AS WELL*. Most likely he will draw T/F or conceptual short answer questions from the QUIZ. 3. R Projects: R1 was a bit work, but for later projects, professor gave us sample code that you can just copy and paste from. Check out his shared google drive for guidance on R. Overall: Prof Fernandes is pretty chill; he is graceful on hwk/prj extensions. His scribbl notes are step by step organized and helpful to understand and tackle hwk problems. But I have to say my grade hugely relied on my TA who helped students during discussions.
Dmitry Dolgopyat STAT400 Anonymous 11/30/2023	hes not a very great professor. his lectures are impossible to understand. showing up to his lectures makes this class harder than it should be so you will be stuck self-studying for everything. the material itself would not be too bad if he was a decent teacher.
Mestiyage Gunatilleka STAT400 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 11/22/2023	He is a little boring at times but lectures are recorded. He acknowledges that most people taking this class are CS majors and tailors content to be relevant for them. My TA was fantastic and he was accommodating when ELMS kept deleting my homework. Exams are exactly like the study guide. The only annoying thing is the R projects because R was never brought up in lecture(there was a pdf on ELMS).
Hatice Sahinoglu STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/09/2023	Honestly, I think these scores are really low when she is totally fine. Go to lecture and take notes or ask for someone else's. There was a few times I couldn't follow what she was doing because it was a proof but you never need to be able to do it on your own so it's chill. I have her for STAT400 and she lets us have a formula sheet that we can make so I just wrote down all the formulas and the first midterm was easy. There's homework every week and it's solid practice. No quizzes.
Dmitry Dolgopyat STAT400 Expecting an A- Anonymous 10/05/2023	He appears to be very knowledgeable about his subject, however he is not a very good teacher and is frankly a very poor lecturer. Much of the lecture is spent with him progressing rather quickly and confusingly through highly complex mathematical proofs for various statistical equations that are completely unnecessary to understand the content of the course, thus resigning his students to an annoying state of frustration at being more confused at the end than they were at the beginning. Most of the material is relatively simple to understand if taught well, primarily consisting of calculating probabilities and working with a couple of different statistical distributions based on their means and standard deviations; however he makes everything so much more complicated and harder to understand when it does not need to be that way. On top of this, he has an incredibly thick accent and the tendency to speak progressively softer as if he is fading away from reality into the cloudy mathematical recesses of his brain. All in all, I found it much more informative to read the textbook and teach myself the material than learn via Professor Dolgopyat's needlessly complex and confusion-riddled lectures.
Jonathan Fernandes STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 09/23/2023	He is great.
Timothy Pilachowski STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 07/25/2023	Very straight-forward, his exams are basically identical to his previous ones (save for the numbers), and he teaches the material in a way that's pretty easy to understand. Would recommend taking him for STAT400 if you can.
Lutian Zhao STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 07/11/2023	I had Prof. Zhao for the virtual summer course for STAT400. Even though attendance does not affect your grade in the class, I strongly recommend attending most if not all of his lectures as he explains concepts pretty well. When I used Canvas to send him my questions, he replies very quickly and concisely.
Lutian Zhao STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 07/09/2023	He’s an alright lecturer and a chill guy. Easy exams that are literally the exact same as the practice exams but with the numbers changed. No exaggeration. Easiest A I’ve had in college so far
Mestiyage Gunatilleka STAT400 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 07/05/2023	Exams in the class are super fair, as they are near identical to the practice exams, and some of the assigned homework questions. Danul speaks fairly slowly in the lecture, which does give you plenty of time to record/process what he says, but also can get painfully annoying sometimes. He also tends to make a fair number of mistakes in his lectures/notes, which can be slightly frustrating to deal with at times. He could also do a better job of explaining concepts and providing necessary formulas, as he spends a lot of time giving derivations, and also spends a lot of time explaining concepts through examples/scenarios that aren't that helpful. Danul also is a caring professor who is responsive to emails and gives many chances to ask questions. Overall, he is a decent professor, and is a decent option for STAT400.
Lutian Zhao STAT400 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 07/03/2023	Professor Zhao is an outstanding professor. This was the summer version of STAT400 so the material was delivered an an accelerated rate and Prof Zhao was effective as a lecturer while also being generous with assignment due dates. He often extended the due dates for Exams and gave us a great deal of help through his practice exams. Pay attention during lecture and use his practice exams. As a lecturer he's direct and doesn't waste time.
Mestiyage Gunatilleka STAT400 Expecting an A akl2025 05/25/2023	Danul is a straightforward and caring professor. STAT400 is fairly easy as long as you review notes and do the practice exams (and read the textbook if you want to understand topics better). Pros: - Good notes: great handwriting. He posted his notes on the weekend. - Exams: as long as you did the practice exams and understood it well enough, you passed his midterms and final. - Fair grading: show you work. Even if your answer or calculation is wrong, as long as you show your thought process, he gave a lot of partial credits. - Homework: The TAs went over the solutions in the discussion on Friday, so Danul is giving you free grades because the homework is usually due on Monday. Cons: - A bit confusing. There were quite a lot of contents to cover in 75 minutes. Read the textbook or google for clarification.
Mestiyage Gunatilleka STAT400 Expecting a B+ kathleenMiles 05/21/2023	Easy class with this professor where his exams are basically the same as the practice exams. He explains things very badly in a very dry, theoretical, unnecessary complicated manner. He records his lectures and uploads the sheet he writes on during lecture so that you do not have to attend in person. However, I must confess that I never went to lecture, never watched the recordings, nor read the sheets he would upload. He had amazing TAs who taught much better than him and held great review sessions right before the exam. Responds fast to email. Homework was free points, and the TAs would just give you the answers during discussion. Practice exams were often riddled with typos. With the mathematical notation, you would often be scratching your head thinking whether the question is asking for something you've never heard before, before realizing that it's just a mistake. R projects were annoying and painful but just going to the R tutor to sort them out was good enough. He cared about his students, and was willing to grant extensions without too much of an issue. Overall, this professor did not make things unnecessarily hard. The fact that I did not get an A is solely my fault. I feel with a bit more effort I could have gotten an A.
Hatice Sahinoglu STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/19/2023	She's just not good. Her lecturing is disorganized and difficult to understand. The test average is extremely low as a result. There's a generous curve in the class as a result, but this is just a band-aid over the real problem. Take someone else.
Hatice Sahinoglu STAT400 Anonymous 05/18/2023	Professor Sahinoglu knows the material well and has a friendly personality. She does have a thick accent but it is still straightforward to understand what she is saying. That will hardly be the greatest challenge if you take STAT400 with her. The problem is that she is a good mathematician but an awful teacher. Lectures are very confusing and easily over half of her notes seem to have little to nothing to do with the material you'll need to know for quizzes and exams. She wastes time rambling about things that don't matter and get easily distracted. You will mostly be learning the material from the textbook and any useful outside sources you find. Her study recommendations for exams are often misleading and some of it never even gets tested on - or worse, you get tested on something that was never thoroughly explained in lecture or wasn't recommended for study. All of this results in rock bottom means scores for exams, forcing people who aren't wizards to pray for the grade curve to be in their favor. I do not recommend you take STAT400 with Professor Sahinoglu, unless you're already well versed at probability/statistics or want to gamble on surfing the curve. Your best bet is to get a section with a different professor, or if Sahinoglu is your only option, take STAT400 later.
Mestiyage Gunatilleka STAT400 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/18/2023	I love "Mesty Besty" as his teachings made sense, exams were very lenient as you were allowed your own formula sheet, and the TAs were generous with partial credit as long as you showed substantial work for your answer. STATs used to be one of my weakest subjects, but taking it with Mestiyage proved that under proper guidance you can succeed in anything. Thank you Mestiyage!
Ke Chen STAT400 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/17/2023	Took his class Fall 2022 when it was his first at the University. Ke Chen is a great lecturer with fair exams. Although the second midterm had a noticeable difficulty spike, it was largely due to a small miscommunication that he made up for with a split curve. The homeworks and quizzes were manageable since they largely reinforced everything taught in lecture. Either attend the lectures or read the textbook and you'll be fine. Would 100% recommend.
Mestiyage Gunatilleka STAT400 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 05/17/2023	Danul is a straightforward professor and STAT400 class is fairly easy to do well in if you prepare properly. The textbook is really good for practice problems and he is all around very fair when it comes to assignment grading. He should be the go-to pick for this class.
Mestiyage Gunatilleka STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/17/2023	I attended 4 classes the whole year and ended with an A. The first class I went to was the introduction class (first day). The second time I showed up was for the first midterm. The third time I showed up was for the second midterm. The fourth I showed up was for the final. Homeworks are R projects are a free 50% of your grade. The midterms are the exact same as the practice exam he gives the week before. 1 sheet of notes is allowed for the exams and 2 sheets for the final. I copied down the answers and formulas from the practice exams and went in and took the real exams and got an A on both. Too easy and the professor himself is VERY NICE and understanding. He is very passionate about stats and genuinely cares for his students.
Mestiyage Gunatilleka STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/15/2023	TAKE HIM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This dude literally gives out free A's. All I needed were a 50% or higher on all the exams. The exams were exactly like the practice exams so make sure you copy down the practice exams onto your cheat sheet as detailed as possible. His homeworks and projects were free 100s. They go over the homeworks in discussion but the answers are online. The project can seem difficult so use ChatGPT or go to the math tutoring at Kirwan. Danul is a really nice guy. He talks slow so that everyone can understand and sometimes even cracks jokes.. You can pass this class with bare minimum understanding. If you really want to understand the content then just pay attention in class, participate and read the textbook. It's up to you how deeply you want to understand the content. The TAs were helpful. He responds to emails in a timely manner and is willing to answer questions.
Hatice Sahinoglu STAT400 Expecting a B- Anonymous 05/10/2023	Worst professor, no cap. Bros notes r so bad, she writes on paper and never zooms in and her handwriting is trash. I sat in the 3rd row and still had difficult seeing what she was writing. Also her accent is a little difficult to get by. She doesn’t teach everything on the syllabus. The book is a better professor than her. She said her averages on the exams was high(80-90s) and the first midterm had a 60ish average and the second was a 52. I recommend to either take any other professor or to just take the course the following semester.
Hatice Sahinoglu STAT400 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/10/2023	She’s a wonderful person but teaching might just not be for her. When the average for a midterm was 52 for her and 80 for every other stat professor then you know that there is something wrong. A lot of people drop this class for good reason. Take anyone but her if you can.
Hatice Sahinoglu STAT400 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/10/2023	Averages for exams were in the 50’s and adds a 20 point curve.
Hatice Sahinoglu STAT400 Expecting a D Anonymous 05/08/2023	Horrible. Unclear lectures, horrible handwriting, provides irrelevant review material. Grade distribution is 95% exams (2 midterms and a final) and 5% online quizzes. Does not do practice problems, and the discussions are so boring. Her exams are ridiculously hard. If you are naturally good at math you can probably take her and be fine but for someone who actually needs to be taught concepts all the way through, and someone with ADS accommodations, she was an academic death sentence.
Jonathan Fernandes STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/07/2023	I did all the practice exams, homework's, quizzes (he gives 2 to 3 chances to retake quizzes to get best score), went to every discussion (except 1) and made an effort to go to every lecture and ask questions on the spot when I felt confused. We are given all the tools to pass this class and do well on exams, given the exams are nearly identical to practice exams he gives as hw assignments prior to the exam day. It just depends on how much effort you are personally willing to put in (outside of class) and probably who your TA is. TA explains the little caveats necessary to complete the hw's, so go to discussion! I had to work really hard outside of class to make sure I was understanding but nothing was really too big of a surprise/stretch to me because I have already taken a statistics class (that wasnt calc based), completed calc 1,2,3, dif eqs and lin alg. My strong math background definitely helped.
Mickael Latocca STAT400 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/07/2023	Latocca should not be a teacher. He is impossible to understand, and his lectures are just confusing. I ended up just reading the book and teaching myself. After the first couple weeks of class, I only showed up for exams. By the end of the class, only about 25% of the class even showed up to class. The withdrawal rate was unbelievable. The homework and quizzes are very poorly written; many typos which he had to go back and fix after he released them, and still the instructions are unclear and bizarre. The only redeeming thing about the class is that the exams (including the final) are exactly like the practice exams, just changing up the numbers a bit. Still, the average on the first exam was 60%, and he only curved by 1% at the end of the semester. I came out with a good grade, but that is only because I taught the material myself via the book. Overall, I would strongly suggest you not take Latocca for anything.
Mestiyage Gunatilleka STAT400 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/06/2023	Really really straightforward and easy to get an A he explains stuff ok
Hatice Sahinoglu STAT400 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/04/2023	I can guarantee that all the reviews shitting on her are from people who did not go to lecture and did not go to discussion. Shocker: people who listen to the professor and what she's teaching, end up doing well on her tests! I never did homework (it was optional) and only studied the two nights before a test, but what I did do was attend every lecture and discussion and pay attention and take notes, and I did extremely well in the tests. Every single question format is thoroughly covered in lecture, so if you just simply attend lecture and pay attention, you should have absolutely no problem passing this class. She explains everything carefully and takes whatever question people have. Great professor.
Mestiyage Gunatilleka STAT400 Expecting a P Anonymous 05/03/2023	I truly felt that some students just overpraised the professor. He is not a good lecturer. If you would like to learn the material find another professor, he taught the material in a confused manner. His practice exam is not enough to do well in the exam. For example, his final exam contain only few questions to prepare for the exam.
Mestiyage Gunatilleka STAT400 Anonymous 05/02/2023	exams are pretty much the practice exams he hands out. But otherwise not the greatest at explaining things.
Mestiyage Gunatilleka STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 04/30/2023	free a, just do practice exam and u straight
Mestiyage Gunatilleka STAT400 Anonymous 04/27/2023	He is not a good lecturer. Moreover, he explained easy concepts in a difficult way.
Mestiyage Gunatilleka STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 04/25/2023	Class is very easy and understandable. People be putting bad rep on danul but hes honestly a goat professor. Lectures can be quite boring because this class is EASY but his exams are exactly the same as practice.
Mestiyage Gunatilleka STAT400 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 04/25/2023	Love him
Mestiyage Gunatilleka STAT400 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 04/22/2023	Great professor, homework can be found online and the proefssor has easy exams
Mestiyage Gunatilleka STAT400 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 04/22/2023	Easy professor, like everyone said, tests are identical to practice
Mestiyage Gunatilleka STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 04/22/2023	Extremely good professor. Had him for MATH140 and now w/ STAT400. Exams are identical to practice exams (literally), HW is very fair. Very responsive with emails, and answers students' questions extremely detailed. 20/10 professor. Don't even know what the person's review 3 reviews down is on about, probably didn't even attended class and expected to be handed a free A!
Jonathan Fernandes STAT400 Anonymous 04/08/2023	He is a nice professor, but his course is a mess. Starting with homework, he assigns homework with extreme difficulty with no relevance to lecture/quizzes/exams. Although we would take time to look at homework during discussion, it would only be enough to do 1-2 problems. So, when you go to complete the rest of the problems it is impossible unless you have a TA's help because there are no examples/resources available to help with said problems. When time for exams/quizzes you have no idea what you are doing because you spent time practicing something unrelated. I spent about 10 hours weekly to do homework!!! Also, the professor goes quicky through material and skips over defining important symbols/mini-concepts. The nice thing is that he posts lecture notes, however, they usually offer little meaning due to the lack of defining small things, lack of cohesion, and lack of relevant examples. We also have to complete R projects with little to no guidance on how to use the language. Attending his office hours are pointless, when I would go, he would have a hard time answering the homework questions. And because he has one of his office hours on the day the homework is due, when seeking help, he will not provide full explanations saying something along the lines of "it will be hard to explain this completely if you wait until the last minute". Overall, I spent 20 hours a week for his class (including lectures and discussions) and still preformed poorly. I spoke with classmates and I am not the only one. What bothers me the most is how his rating is 3.89. Avoid him at all costs!
Mestiyage Gunatilleka STAT400 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 04/05/2023	Easy exams hw and projects
Mestiyage Gunatilleka STAT400 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 04/05/2023	Great professor. Lectures are easy to understand, the tests are exactly the same as the practice exam, last review guy must be dumb. Professor is great take him!
Ke Chen STAT400 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 04/01/2023	Exams were very fair. The professor taught exactly what would be on exams and we were allowed to make our own formula sheet. Start the homework early.
Mestiyage Gunatilleka STAT400 Expecting a P Anonymous 03/10/2023	This class turned to be a self teaching class. He is not good at lecturing. His exams are completely opposite of his teaching materials. Moreover, his exam is nothing similar to practice exam.
Mickael Latocca STAT400 Anonymous 02/02/2023	Doesn’t clean his chalk board, have no study guide for exams, explanations are scattered all over the place, and went off the material in the syllabus and textbook. Worst professor of my life.
Mickael Latocca STAT400 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 02/01/2023	This guy is awesome! He is very misunderstood, his exams are fair and his teaching style is not that bad
Mestiyage Gunatilleka STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 01/31/2023	Great professor, communicative via emails, and exams are so easy.
Mestiyage Gunatilleka STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 01/31/2023	Danul is a beast
Mestiyage Gunatilleka STAT400 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 01/31/2023	Not sure why his reviews are this low. This guy is a very nice professor and clearly cares about his students. His homework is literally just like 5-6 problems each week and they can be found online. Furthermore, his tests are very similar to the practice exam, meaning he changes a few numbers and calls it a day. Would recommend.
Mestiyage Gunatilleka STAT400 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 01/24/2023	Great stat professor
Ke Chen STAT400 Expecting an A- Anonymous 01/21/2023	Ke chen was a good lecturer, and his assignments were very fair. His exams weren't too bad for the amount of content given, although exam 2 was brutal (he made it up slightly though). Would have given him 5 stars except for the fact he decided to add on extra stuff at the end of the semester
Raymond Schram STAT400 Expecting an A theGreat 01/19/2023	Exams are straight forward and exactly like the practice exams. No homework but there are optional practice problems. He can get lost in his own work sometimes but he tries to be engaging at least. Overall hes just a very mid professor.
James Conway STAT400 Expecting a D Anonymous 01/19/2023	You will have 3 exams in this class midterm 1, midterm 2, final they account for 90% of your grade. If you fail one of the midterms the final exam is worth 70% of your grade. Lectures were extremely boring and exams were really hard. TA's were great but they did everything for this class. Would recommend you take this diff prof especially someone been at university longer
Ke Chen STAT400 Expecting a B Anonymous 01/05/2023	Ke is a great lecturer and knows how to teach well. Attendance is really important for this class, and admittedly, I wasn't the best about it. The online quizzes are pretty straightforward and model things from the homework/class, so it's not too difficult to get full points on them. The exams in Fall 2022 weren't bad either, just that Exam 2 was a bit tricky and could've been a bit fairer. When it came time for final grades, the curve was a bit uneven, and really only helped what felt like a small subset of students. If you have the option to take a class with him, do it, but be prepared to put in the work.
Mestiyage Gunatilleka STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 01/03/2023	Easy professor exams are very similar to practice
Mestiyage Gunatilleka STAT400 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 01/03/2023	Great professor
Mickael Latocca STAT400 Expecting a D+ Anonymous 01/02/2023	Gave no study guide/review for first exam because he's "never heard of a study guide before." One of our quiz questions was in french (prof's first language). Only gave 6 HW's and 6 quizzes that were worth like 20% of grade and the other 80% was based on exams. Not to mention the midterms were only worth 20 points and final 40 points, so your grade easily drops with few points off. Stopped going to lectures because board was not readable (chalk made board messy and wrote kinda small). Were given no calculators or cheat sheets on exams, even tho other stat400 classes were allowed these things. No significant curves were given (curved by like 1% at the end of semester). Prof is a super nice guy but just needs to figure out how to be an actual professor and how to treat students fairly with grades.
Mickael Latocca STAT400 Expecting a D+ Anonymous 12/29/2022	What can I say that others haven't already the guy simply cannot teach and while yes the exams might have been fair the fact that I learned nothing from this class despite showing up to every lecture and discussion section and going to office hours says a lot. Mike uses the most antiquated pedagogy that this class will take up more of your time then any other just because you'll have to self learn the material because his lectures are confusing and his notes are just as if not worse. Exams again while fair are weighted so ludicrous that over the course of a few tests if you mess up even slightly here and there across all 3 exams you could easily go from A to C within the course of 2 exams and because his lectures are of no use you'll have to self teach all the material found on the exams, he also refuses to let people use cheat sheets like the other stats classes do requires everyone to write in pen for some reason in a math class and banned the use of calculators on the exams. Class also saw no curve despite him saying at the beginning of the semester that there would be a curve and when asked about it he said that the class would see no curve because "he's stubborn". Take this class with anyone but Mike unless you want to have the most rigorous stats experience.
James Conway STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/26/2022	I'm happy with Conway. The semester and notes were fairly straightforward and he always posts lecture notes online. Some points were harder for me to grasp (mainly around point estimation) because it felt like he did examples but didn't really explain the process that well. However, the TA's generally did a great job covering the macro view of some topics that helped to balance this out. The exams were generally pretty fair (although without practice exams this semester it was a bit harder to know what to expect but he said this would change for future classes because this was his first semester). The first exam was a bit too hard based on the distribution but with the final overriding the lowest midterm, that wasn't too big of a deal. Overall I would recommend, he is a really friendly guy who does a pretty good job with the straight forwardness of the content and making sure you knew what to be ready for on the exams (and allowed cheat sheets and a calculator for midterm 2 and the final).
Mickael Latocca STAT400 Expecting a C Anonymous 12/25/2022	The fact that I have to pay tuition money despite that I learn more from the textbook than his lectures is disgraceful. Horrendous teacher. Makes absolutely no sense, you can't see his whiteboard because he never cleans it very well. His teaching is disorganized and scattered all over the place. Learned more from the textbook than going to his lectures.
James Conway STAT400 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/24/2022	Good professor but could not care less about stat, teaching 3 classes simultaneously so his lectures were word for word the textbook. Recommend Mestiyage instead of Conway 100%
James Conway STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/24/2022	Prof. Conway is the most responsive instructor that I've met. His lectures are okay, he's making jokes sometimes. The homework was short, and the exams were fair following his practice review. I would haven't gotten a perfect 4 without his help.
Mickael Latocca STAT400 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/24/2022	He can't teach but tests are very similar to the practice exam and homework. Probably best to take another professor.
Mestiyage Gunatilleka STAT400 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/22/2022	Best professor for statistics, makes things so easy to understand
Mickael Latocca STAT400 Expecting a B- Anonymous 12/22/2022	Stay far away. This guy cannot teach and exams are heavily weighted with two midterms worth 20% each and the final being worth a whole 40%. This weighting is highly unacceptable due to the fact that midterms were only 20 points and the final was only 40 points. This meant that messing up only a few points would instantly throw you to a B range. Furthermore, some homeworks were excessively difficult and this was only exacerbated by the fact that he was inept at teaching any of the material during class. The averages for the midterms and finals were in the C range and homeworks in the B-C range and yet the class saw no curve which Latocca was very adamant about as he is "very stubborn" (he said this). If you enjoy a rigorous statistics experience where you must self-teach yourself all the material and overall don't mind stressing over a class that is supposed to be a basic requirement then go ahead and take this guy. If you're like the majority of people in the class and are just trying to get by STAT400 because it's part of your major requirements stay far, far away from this guy. Just take your time and wait for another professor, it's not worth it.
Ke Chen STAT400 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/22/2022	He's a very nice professor, and I suppose his class would have been a lot easier if I had had some more time for it, but that's the thing - I shouldn't have had to put this much time and effort into a 3 credit class. I went to lectures for about half the semester before I gave up and stopped because they weren't any help. It was a better use of my time to just study the notes and the textbook. The homeworks were helpful, though. I got a pretty good grade on the final exam and I exclusively did homework problems to prep for it. I feel like he didn't curve the class enough for the way we had all performed.
Ke Chen STAT400 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/22/2022	Pretty good professor. He recorded lectures and posted his notes he generated in class. The exams weren't unreasonable, even though they feel super hard in the moment. It's not impossible to do well, and you are taught the material. The homework helped with solidifying concepts, especially if you go to discussion. He was also super responsive to student complaints.
Mickael Latocca STAT400 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/22/2022	The one good thing about him is that he’s very clear about what is to be expected on the exams, they are exactly like the study guide/homework. However, he’s so bad at teaching that you have to teach yourself all that content in the first place. He also came across to me as very rude in his announcements and his responses to student questions during lecture. The TAs and prior probability knowledge really carried me in this course. Take anyone else for STAT400 if you have the chance.
Ke Chen STAT400 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/21/2022	Don't let this guy's accent fool you (or do!), because this guy is a brilliant professor. He was very fair for both his homework and his quizzes. Chen's style is very simple, but it's more than enough to help you get through the course. ATTENDANCE IS CRUCIAL in the course for Chen, not because it's a grade (the class is too big for that), but because it's that much more difficult to pass the incredibly simple exams (I should know first hand). Chen is also very cognizant and forgiving. There was a part on the second midterm that EVERYBODY failed, but it wasn't even supposed to be included on the exam. As a result, he implemented a split curve to help students improve their grade. Additionally, he dropped the two lowest scoring quizzes and homework assignments. Finally, he gave a grading curve to the class that boosted several people from a C+ to a B- or a B+ to an A-. Overall, great professor, even better person.
Mickael Latocca STAT400 Expecting a B- Anonymous 12/21/2022	Prof. Latocca seems like a nice guy but really can't teach without confusing his students. His lectures are not recorded so you have to force yourself to come to class and his lecture notes can be confusing at times. Even if you are knowledgeable in stats, the exams' weight can throw you off as the two midterms and the final accounts for 80% of the grade and the exams itself were a bit on the hard side. Not to mention the homeworks are quite difficult and make you spend a lot of time on them. Overall, I recommend to not take him.
Mickael Latocca STAT400 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/20/2022	I had a generally OK experience with Professor Latocca's class. His lectures were pretty straightforward aside from times where he made a mistake while teaching and couldn't quickly correct it. Also, he decided to use the blackboard in the lecture hall instead of the projector which would have made reading what he was writing easier. However, the lecture notes he created were good enough to use for the homework and exam preparation. On the grading, his grading scheme was 80% towards the exams with the rest being homework and weekly quizzes. Also, the total points for all exams were 80 points and we didn't have much curving, so messing up even one or two questions over all 3 exams meant you probably wouldn't get an A. Additionally, you were not allowed any formula sheets for any exam. This is not ideal, but the exam content itself was very fair, and there were 2 bonus points on the final and the second exam was slightly curved. Professor Latocca made review videos for the final and similar problems were covered in the lecture notes and discussions, so if you practice those, watch the videos, and redo the homework you should be prepared for the exams (especially since Exam 2 and the final were very similar to review problems and our final homework). Overall, this class is not the easiest one to choose for STAT400, but you should be fine in this class if you are able to understand the formulas and see how they are applied for the practice problems. The lectures themselves weren't too necessary in my opinion but reading over all lecture notes and understanding every homework and review problem should prepare you for the exams.
Mickael Latocca STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/20/2022	Prof. Latocca was a great professor for STAT400. His lectures were well-taught, even more so if you're good at asking questions as a student. My only complaint is that the exams were a bit too heavy-weighted, but despite that, I believe the difficulty of the exams was fair considering the weights. In short, Prof. Latocca is great and I highly recommend taking a class with him.
Mickael Latocca STAT400 Expecting a W Anonymous 12/20/2022	lectures were super confusing, lecture notes were even more confusing, didn’t use the textbook as curriculum, exams were impossible to study for
James Conway STAT400 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/20/2022	Terrible lecturer. He will spend 20 minutes going over a topic only to say it won't be on the exam. His notes are very disorganized and hard to follow. Although his exams and HWs were fair, I taught myself most of the material. I felt this class would have been an easy A had he been a more organized lecturer. Would recommend taking someone else if possible.
Mickael Latocca STAT400 Expecting a C- latocca_sucks 12/20/2022	He is not understanding at all and refuses to curve, and seems proud of it. Very unlikeable guy, avoid him at all costs. As others have said, his lectures have nothing to do with exam questions. Whoever let this person into UMD to teach should be fired. Very outdated mindset (40% final weight!!!), horrible professor.
Mickael Latocca STAT400 Anonymous 12/20/2022	Terrible professor. His writing on the blackboard is not readable. His lectures are not coherent in nature, there is no structure to his teaching. You are better off using the textbook to learn, which completely defeats his purpose as a professor. The weights on exams are absolutely criminal (20% midterm, 20% midterm, 40% final), this guy is completely stuck in the past. Not welcoming at all. Avoid this person at all costs. Take STAT410 or STAT400 with another professor.
Mickael Latocca STAT400 Expecting a C- Anonymous 12/20/2022	Latocca is a nice guy; however, the weights are not fair at all. Each midterm is 20% of the final grade. This is not the issue, the issue is that his midterm is graded in 20 points which means each point worth 1% of the final grade. His lectures are ok but his handwriting is so bad.
James Conway STAT400 Expecting a B Justacoder 12/20/2022	Straightforward professor. His lectures follow the text book so as long as you read and understand it you should be fine. Homeworks are fair and exams are fine. First exam scores weren't very great so he allowed cheat sheets and calculators moving forward which helped alot. My only complaint is that he pushed to cover more material than we really needed to. We went a chapter farther that what most other classes reach. The last chapter was a bit long so learning it right before the final was not ideal.
Mickael Latocca STAT400 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/20/2022	Mickael is a very nice guy, very accomodating and actually listened to student feedback which is why I'd rate him relatively highly. Unfortunately his lectures and notes are confusing and hard to follow, and he has a fairly thick accent. Overall didn't learn very much in class and had to mostly study on my own. Exams are not outrageous but he doesn't allow a cheat sheet which is uncommon for a stat class. I believe this was his first semester teaching and he improved a lot by the end. Not the worst choice if you have to but I probably wouldn't recommend.
James Conway STAT400 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/20/2022	best at office hours; fair tests and teaching practices
Mickael Latocca STAT400 Anonymous 12/19/2022	Lectures are completely useless as others have said, exam weights are absolutely ridiculous… 40%!!!!! (someone tell this guy we don’t live in the past anymore)
Ke Chen STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/19/2022	Look, he's a great choice. Extremely understanding and even more intelligent. The exams are not as hard as some people claim they are. I personally didn't attend lectures and the final was quite doable with one day of textbook studying.
Mickael Latocca STAT400 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/17/2022	I am not a freshman in college and yes I know what i'm talking about. This professor is terrible. There are no 2 ways about it. No formula sheets, no cheat sheet, no hope. To add icing on the cake his handwriting and accent make it hard to digest much of the little he is saying. Wouldn't recommend even to a business major.
Ke Chen STAT400 Expecting a C+ Anonymous 12/17/2022	Incredibly skilled at the topic, and a good lecturer, which is a very good combination to have as a professor. I'm sure plenty of these reviews mention exam 2, which had an average around the mid-50s. He decided to split-curve it with the final, which I honestly disagree with since he admitted to placing an unfair question on it and then chose to make it our responsibility to pull up our grade, but it's a good reflection of how much he cares about his students that he chose to curve it at all. One warning: he provides practice exams of fairly identical layout to his actual exams. Do NOT trust them to be similar in difficulty to the actual exam. For both the second exam and the final, the actual exams were significantly more difficult than the practice exam given. Use other resources to study, because his practice exams will give you a false sense of security.
Mestiyage Gunatilleka STAT400 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/16/2022	Great professor, exams are identical to practice
Mickael Latocca STAT400 Anonymous 12/16/2022	Really good professor, posts notes after class and the practice exams + quizzes we take in class are EXACTLY the same as the midterms.
Ke Chen STAT400 Anonymous 12/14/2022	Definitively a solid professor. Weekly homework were good to get your understanding of the needed concepts, the weekly quizzes reinforced the homework that was due the day before. I'd say the second exam was challenging for many because of a fairly large miscommunication between the students and professor, but he did implement a type of curve to give students who do well on the final a better grade (I think it should've been a little different curve, but I understand his reasoning behind it). You can tell he loves statistics and wants to teach you the fundamentals so you best understand them and can apply them when needed.
Mickael Latocca STAT400 Expecting a C Anonymous 12/13/2022	I had a terrible experience with my STAT400 professor. Their lectures were completely irrelevant to the material on the exams, and even if you tried to follow along, they were incredibly hard to understand. On top of that, they don't curve our grades no matter how badly we do, so even if you struggle in the class, you're still stuck with a poor grade. The exams are fair, but only if you're willing to put in the extra effort to self-study. Overall, I would not recommend this professor to anyone.
Ke Chen STAT400 Expecting a B- Anonymous 12/12/2022	On the Midterm 2 difficulty spike, I don't feel there actually was one. The average was pretty bad and I was part of that, but at least for me it was mainly one question. It wasn't covered in the textbook, but lecture content is fair game on the exam, and the lectures were recorded. I don't recall but I don't believe he said that question/topic wouldn't be on the exam. The question wasn't that bad, just a lot of people (including me) forgot how to do it. In fact, in the review session the TA apparently went over the EXACT question by coincidence. Professor Chen introduced a curve for that exam. I feel this was more of a fluke, and don't think it reflects on Professor Chen overall. The rest of the class was good. Homework is very doable and you can work on it with others, and get help from TAs during office hours and discussion. Lectures are fine, and were recorded as he usually worked through the lecture on his tablet. Exam format is predictable, similar to practice exams and prior exams.
Mickael Latocca STAT400 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/11/2022	Latocca seems like a nice guy, but he isn't a good professor. He teaches on a black board with illegible handwriting and his mic rarely works so his lectures are almost incomprehensible unless you are sitting in the front. His weights for everything make it very difficult to do well in his class since the final exam is worth 40 percent and each midterm is 20 percent, so the major tests alone decide how you will do. If you are not a great test taker, don't take him! He hasn't said anything yet about a curve, but judging by the reviews and the average exam grades so far, if he doesn't have a curve, most people will be getting Cs. He also often gets problems wrong and his teaching often includes a lot of going back and forth correcting his work making it hard for anyone to follow him. He also more or less just does problems on the board rather than actually teaching anything and if anyone asks any questions, he often mocks them and says that the answer should be obvious while thats not the case most of the time. If you really want to learn anything in lectures and get a good grade and not have to self study almost everything in the course, don't take Latocca!
Mickael Latocca STAT400 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/08/2022	I have been reading all the other reviews for Latocca and I think the reviews are not fair/accurate. Many of the students complaining about his teaching style are freshmen who just entered college and don't know what they are talking about. Stat400 is not supposed to be easy. Statistics is a hard subject; however, the problem with Latocca`s class is the exam weights. The final is worth 40 percent and 2 midterms each 20 percent. The rest of the grade is quizzes and HWs. The HW questions can be tricky but the exam questions are fair. I think he is still unfamiliar with the U.S. educational system considering him being foreign. He is a nice guy and tries his best to teach the material. If you want to learn stat take his class, but if you want to just get a good grade for not doing as much, take someone else. And remember, this is not high school and you are probably not a "communication" major, the subjects are not EASY!
Mestiyage Gunatilleka STAT400 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/05/2022	Great professor, his lectures were great and quizzes/exams were straightforward. If you put in the work, you will get the grade you want.
Mestiyage Gunatilleka STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/01/2022	Dont seem to get why this professor is getting so much hate, probably because he is a stat professor and teaching calculus. He is a great stat professor, so I can 100% recommend him for taking your stats classes, not so much calculus I guess. His exams are fairly identical to the practice exams, homework is easy, and fairly understandable lecturer. Great!
Mickael Latocca STAT400 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 11/30/2022	Lectures are good and well taught, exams are fair
Mickael Latocca STAT400 Anonymous 11/25/2022	I used to talk about how lucky I was to have a streak of amazing professors my entire academic career, but that streak ended once Latocca came to UMD. Everything from his handwriting to his teaching style is terrible. Latocca does not allow any formula sheets for exams (unlike most other stat400 professors), and his exams have an average around 60%. One could attribute these complaints to students being lazy, but if a class as a collective is failing/complaining, then that says more about the professor than the student base. A class such as stat400 should not have exam averages this low (look at the average GPA on PlanetTerp if you don't believe me). These are a few of my major complaints. Would not recommend this professor AT ALL
Mickael Latocca STAT400 Anonymous 11/16/2022	The man simply can't teach. In class, he writes on a blackboard in which you can neither see or decipher. You would have to solely rely on the notes on elms. There are no formula sheets on the exams, so the only way to do well is to simply memorize the practice midterms. He also is condescending to students' questions saying things like "why don't you just look at the notes online" or "this is pretty obvious"... when in fact, it is NOT obvious. I believe there is huge faith in a curve at the end of this semester as this is his first time teaching - if there isn't, this semester might be his last.
Mickael Latocca STAT400 Expecting a C+ Anonymous 11/16/2022	Latocca seems like a pretty nice guy, but overall he is just not a good instructor. His lectures are VERY theoretical and confusing. He often makes mistakes during lecture which causes more confusion. I find myself having to teach the course material myself (the videos/material you find online are 10x more clear than his lectures). I strongly recommend you avoid this professor if you want to succeed in STAT400.
Mickael Latocca STAT400 Expecting a W Anonymous 11/15/2022	STAT400 should be an easy class, but Latocca somehow managed to make it one of the hardest math classes I've ever taken. First quiz we took had a true or false section in French (how does that happen??). His lectures are impossible to learn from and if you try to learn from his lectures notes instead, good luck reading his handwriting. I can tell he means well for his students, but the man simply doesn't know how to teach a class. If you want to pass STAT400, don't take this professor. Just don't.
Mickael Latocca STAT400 Expecting a W Anonymous 11/15/2022	Do NOT Take this professor. His teaching does not correlate to assignments in class. His homework assignments correlate more to the textbook than what he teaches in class. If you have previous statistics knowledge, you might do well in this class. But if you do not have any experience, good luck.
Ke Chen STAT400 Expecting a C- Anonymous 11/15/2022	I would say he's a decent teacher but this last exam was way too difficult he increased the difficulty a lot for no reason. In my opinion it wasn't even fair difficulty he had stuff he didn't emphasize in class and he included a question essentially based on one he said was not going to be on the exam. I get wanting to challenge students and if I thought it was fair I would not be writing this review and I'd just take the L but my cheatsheet he allows on exams couldn't even help me. Sorry guys if you can take Fernandes I'd take his section
Mickael Latocca STAT400 Expecting a W Anonymous 11/11/2022	Stay away and take this class with anyone but Mickael.
Mickael Latocca STAT400 Expecting a B Anonymous 11/10/2022	As much as I admire his french accent and his pronunciation of some of the terms taught in class, this guy genuinely makes me regret life sometimes. The first half of stats isn't bad but that's because my TA could actually teach the material during the review. But up to the second midterm, I don't even know what was going on and suddenly we were doing double integrals and graphing them without being related to the subject of stats. To be honest, he isn't coherent in relating concepts to one another, which often bamboozles me and probably the rest of the class. He doesn't have 1 star right now because I got a 90 on my first midterm.
Ke Chen STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/10/2022	New professor. Decent and understandable lectures. Exams are MORE than fair, very doable. HW is fine(every week). We do have weekly quizzes every week too but they are also pretty fair. The only complaint people have is his wording on questions on the quizzes, but they get better later on. All in all, pretty fair professor, lectures were decent, exams are fair. Good class, Good prof.
Mickael Latocca STAT400 Expecting a W Anonymous 11/09/2022	I agree. Unless you are really knowledgeable about STAT400 and want only a couple assignments/HW's, don't take this guy. He cannot teach.
Ke Chen STAT400 Expecting an A- Anonymous 11/09/2022	The best stat400 professor ever. We love you, Ke
Mickael Latocca STAT400 Expecting a W Anonymous 11/07/2022	Don't take this guy, you will regret it
Mestiyage Gunatilleka STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 06/18/2022	One of the best professors in STAT. He's exams are very good (nothing difficult), but you need to study hard.
Jonathan Fernandes STAT400 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 06/12/2022	My criteria for a great professor is one that is fair and reasonable, great at teaching, and challenging. I know not everyone goes by these three criteria, in fact, most people probably care more about how easy a class is to pass than the actual content quality. To quickly address this for people who are wondering, this professor has a generally easy class as everyone else has been pointing out; as long as you do the work, you'll get the grade you want. If this is the only criteria I was going by, he definitely deserves a 5. That being said, I personally try to take classes for more than simply fulfilling requirements or getting a good GPA; I think part of a good college experience is to take meaningful classes that are enjoyable. For those who feel the same as me, the following is a more nuanced answer to how I would rate Professor Fernandes. As a person, Fernandes seems like a kind person. I have never personally talked to him but his flexibility and willingness to take input and dynamically adjust his class is something that very few professors do and this shows his care for his students. There were times when many students were behind in work and he extended the deadline. When it came to quizzes, Fernandes wanted to help students later in the semester by giving them multiple chances to finish a quiz. I feel that there are a lot of professors that do not care whether or not students succeed, just doing no more than needed. Fernandes is the complete opposite of this, wanting as many students to succeed as possible. This is something that I have to give huge props and respect for, however, this can be a double-edge sword (which I will explain at the end). As for teaching, Fernandes is not the most engaging professor and as mentioned by many people, focuses mainly on theory. I won't nit-pick too much on the teaching of Stats because frankly, highly technical classes in STEM tend to be more boring. There are exceptions in Science classes where there are demonstrations, however, for the most part, STEM classes are boring. The professor's teaching style is something that I do have a slight issue with. On the one hand, I get where he is coming from; math, when deeply understood, can easily and be more intuitively applied to concrete problems. Deeply understanding math allows one to apply concepts more versatiley and creatively and even potentially develop new concepts. The truth is though, the higher and more complex Math becomes, the harder it becomes for the average person to 100% grasp theoretical ideas, which is necessary to apply concepts to concrete problems without examples. Also, purely teaching higher math in this manner to people who are not majoring in math and have no interest in math only dissuades students from learning and confuses students. It would be better if Fernandes focused half of his classes on theory and half on concrete examples to get the best of both worlds. Even if I am wrong about his teaching style, it is true that attendance steeply dropped, meaning students did not find his class worth their time. As for my last criteria, I do not believe Fernandes is challenging. There have been comments below that his class is tedious and I totally agree; R projects were something that most people spent lots of time on due to unfamiliarity with R, homework and quizzes took up more than 3 hours a week for me, and the Final project was something that took up some time that was completely unnecessary. Tedious, however, is not always helpful to students and is not equal to challenging. First of all, I have no doubt that there was mass cheating in the class and the leniency that Fernandes had enabled this to happen. Quizzes could easily be shared between students and with multiple trials and multiple friends, most people probably got full marks there. Also, ultimately, Fernandes gave up to 5% bonus points as a curve(meaning someone that got a B+ could potentially get an A), which is exorbitantly high which I felt was giving out freebies. Tests were essentially the study guide with a few modified answers. The only thing that was truly challenging in the class was the homeworks, but it did not relate to concrete examples most of the time and answers were given out on Friday. I ultimately believe that if a class is challenging, hard-work and smart work should be rewarded. Again, I respect Fernandes attitude to help the most people, however, his grading and methods allowed many people to get a grade that is unrepresentative of their actual abilities. This is not only unfair to people who truly work hard to understand the content, but ultimately lowers the legitimacy of this class. As a person, I have no issue with Fernandes, but with his teaching style and lack of challenge (which should not be confused with tediousness) I think there is room for him to improve. *Pardon my grammar, I did not feel like checking back
Jonathan Fernandes STAT400 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/21/2022	Initially, you’ll have your doubts about this professor because you’ll feel lost during lecture often and you have weekly quizzes and homework that take up about 3 hours total to finish together. however, he’s an incredibly fair professor who was willing to give us two attempts on the quizzes and drop lower grades for hw and quizzes. His exams and final were also almost exactly like the practice exams which is great because as long as you comprehend the practice exam, you’ll be good for the actual one. I highly recommend his class!
Raymond Schram STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/20/2022	I took Ray in the Fall 2021 semester. He was funny and an engaging lecturer - however, that isn't to say he was the best as he would get lost or confused on what to do. Personally, I don't really mind as the exams and quizzes were fair. For quizzes, pay attention during discussion and you'll be fine. As for exams, go to review sessions and go over the review questions. I can relate to other's not appreciating how unorganized Ray was during lecture, however, I am speaking from hindsight, where the class was overall easy - which to me nullifies the lectures.
Mestiyage Gunatilleka STAT400 Anonymous 05/19/2022	Danul is a decent professor for STAT400. His lectures can be a bit confusing but as long as you attend his office hours and discussions, you'll be fine. He explains the concepts well if you ask him for help outside class. His homework assignments can be a bit lengthy but it's important because it helps you understand the materials. Danul gives fair exams that are similar to the study guides. Overall, if you understand the homework problems and study guides, the exams shouldn't be hard. Danul is a good choice for STAT400.
Hamid Al-Saqban STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/19/2022	Hamid knows a lot about statistics and his knowledge shows in the enthusiasm he had every time a new topic came up. If you actually sit through the lectures and pay attention to what he's saying, I think you will definitely understand statistics. He does go based off the book so if reading is more your style of learning I would suggest that. But his exams were very similar to the homework problems (you walk through the week's graded homework in discussion) so doing those really prepared me for the exams.
Jonathan Fernandes STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/17/2022	STAT400 grade wise was not too difficult, the midterm and final was not too bad, as he does review all of the contents right before, and practice exams are very similar to the actual exam. If you just studied exactly how to do each problem on the practice exams, the actual exams are very straightforward. The lectures were very confusing to me, as he tends to go pretty quickly and his handwriting isn't the best, but everything is recorded on zoom and he posts notes as well. The lecture content is a bit difficult to understand conceptually, but if you watch the prelecture and review lecture notes it shouldn't be too difficult, to be honest, the most important lectures to pay attention to is exam review. The homework and the quizzes were probably the hardest part of the course, some homeworks were super easy but some of them were very challenging. Given how well you did in 141, you might want to review some calculus, as there is quite a bit of calculus in the homework problems and in the course in general. If you watch all of the pre lecture videos and attend all of the lectures, as well as discussion sessions, this class should be very straightforward. The midterm average was around 85% and 90%, so the grades are pretty high, he even drops the lowest hw and quiz grades, as well as awards bonus points. The RStudio projects aren't difficult either, the help slides are extremely useful and basically tells you how to do them. I even skipped quite a few classes and was not the best student, but I was still able to do well in this class.
Mestiyage Gunatilleka STAT400 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/17/2022	I personally thought that Danul was a decent professor. The homework assignments were a decent amount of work, and they weren't too challenging. The TAs go over the homework questions during discussion, so I recommend going to them if you're struggling with it. His exam questions were a bit different from the examples done in class but his study guides are exactly the same as the actual exam (just with different values). So if you know how to solve the problems that are on the study guide, you will get a good grade on the exams (final as well). He might change that up next time but at least that's how it was for me in Spring 2022.
Mestiyage Gunatilleka STAT400 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/16/2022	I dont quite get why people trash on this professor. Danul is pretty good at teaching STAT400 and his tests are VERY VERY similar if not identical to his practice exams he gives you two weeks before the test. Textbook questions that are assigned are much harder than what he actually gives on the tests and are a free 40% of your grade. Would recommend this guy for any stat classes you take. He is the posterboy of achieving an A in a class.
Hamid Al-Saqban STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/16/2022	As a professor, Hamid is clearly passionate and cares for the subject, but unfortunately he is a subpar lecturer. For the few weeks that I did go to lecture, he was basically reading out of the textbook, but sometimes failed to convey the important parts of the lesson, or misspoke and used the wrong terms or variables which caused a lot of confusion. He also hardly answered questions in lecture, as he was fixated on lecturing without stopping and when he did answer questions sometimes misinterpreted them or answered them awkwardly, without really giving a satisfying answer. While some may say the proofs that happen in class were unnecessary, I'd say this is a 400 level course so they may expect people to understand the concepts they wrote instead of just memorizing formulas, which would be fair. Despite the complaints, I'd give him some leeway for this as he seems new to lecturing in the first place and seems to be lecturing here spontaneously (this section was supposed to be taught by Scott Preston but changed only a few days before semester started). Besides that, in terms of how he runs the class, it is very manageable and not time consuming. There's a small workload, giving only weekly homework problems from the textbook, and besides that only 2 midterms (no quizzes or extra coding assignments that were tedious). The discussion sections were very valuable as they reviewed the content of the past week and went over the homework problems which made the workload of the course even easier. Sometimes the exams/homeworks cover questions that seemed irrelevant to what was being taught (I distinctly remember an infinite sum for a function which didn't have to do with anything we were taught in lecture), and this caused the grades for some assignments to be really low (the first midterm average was a 78%, the second had a 65% average). However, for the final grade of the midterms and finals, it seems to be maximized in many ways (final replaces a lower midterm grade, or if final is lower it could be averaged with the lower midterm grade if it helps), so overall it seems like he takes a fair and reasonable method to manage grades and assignments. STAT400 with Hamid is not terrible as a course, but as a lecturer he leaves a lot to be desired.
Jonathan Fernandes STAT400 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/16/2022	The biggest thing about Fernandes is how big he is on "hard work." From R projects to homeworks to quizzes every week, STAT400 can be a bit draining. Fernandes is pretty theory-heavy in his lectures and tends to write pretty fast, and I personally think his handwriting is not the best, so I'd advise sitting in the front. The homeworks can be difficult, but going to the discussions is crucial in order to get these done. His exams are very similar to the practice exams that he gives out, so make sure to practice that heavily before going into the exam. The only really bad part about this class is the R projects. Fernandes gives R projects that basically ask you to do something but learning R takes some time and can be difficult as the IDE is also not incredibly user-friendly. There should definitely have been a guide released telling us what commands we are expected to use and the approach we should take. In my opinion, R was just very poorly integrated within the course. Nonetheless, Fernandes is an extremely nice guy who's down to answer any of your questions in OH and is accessible through email. And he does curve pretty nicely. Overall, I'd definitely recommend him as he's a good professor.
Jonathan Fernandes STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/14/2022	Literally my favorite professor at UMD. I noticed that he got a lot of low reviews because of MATH141 in 2021, but for STAT400 you better fight with everything you got for a seat in his classes. He kept the class engaged and on schedule the entire semester, and frequently posted lecture notes, class recordings, AND asynchronous videos for people to review on their own. Homeworks are the hardest part of the class and will eat up some time each week, but TA's go over the answers for the homework at the end of the week before it is due. Additionally, forming study groups with other students helps as well for questions that TA don't review. Dr. Fernandes himself is easy to get in contact with and is amazing in office hours, he's willing to work through entire homeworks with students if they show that they are trying to put effort in learning the material (and not just there for a freebie answer, he spots the difference easily). In comparison to homeworks the exams and quizzes are super easy, especially because exams are the same as the practice exams that he reviews a few days before the exams. There's lots of opportunities for bonus credit throughout the semester so you don't need to worry about a few bad grades ruining your final grade. Definitely taking him again for STAT401 and any other class he's teaching.
Hamid Al-Saqban STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/14/2022	Extremely understanding and passionate professor. Work in discussion prepares you very well for exams.
Susan Mazzullo STAT400 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/11/2022	Professor Mazzullo can be rather disorganized at some times, but she is extremely approachable and lenient on grading, which made the experience more bearable. On the first midterm I took for her class, I did not do well, and got a low D. However, she offered a chance for 80% credit back through regrading as long as we came into discussion and corrected our answers. This changed my exam grade from a D to an A. I know of no other professor who is this generous with giving their students a second chance. Sometimes I feel bad because students may exploit her leniency and take advantage of her class to talk while other students try to learn or push for extensions well beyond the deadline. I think it would be better for everyone if she made her expectations clearer and if she was firmer with due dates.
Susan Mazzullo STAT400 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/09/2022	Nice professor, but tends to over complicate such easy topics. A bit disorganized and lectures tend to be all over the place. If you want the class out of the way just take her.
Mestiyage Gunatilleka STAT400 Expecting an A- Anonymous 05/09/2022	STAT400 with Danul is easy enough (hence my expectation of an A- and my two stars), however his teaching style is truly the opposite of helpful. His lectures are delivered at a glacial pace and end up going in circles on some occasions. The textbook questions assigned are barely representative of the questions that are on the exams. My only saving grace in this class was my TA absolutely carrying me and the fact that the exams have a reasonable difficulty level. TLDR: If you can help it, do not take STAT400 with Danul. However, if you must, be prepared for self-studying.
Jonathan Fernandes STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/09/2022	He's a great guy. Exams are pretty straight forward. HW is hard and quizzes tend to be hard. He doesn't mind changing his course policy if it benefits the class. A lot to memorize outside of distributions for the exams if you want to do well. Avg was around a 90. Beginning is going to seem hard but it gets easier.
Guangyu Xi STAT400 Expecting a P Anonymous 04/22/2022	Had him Spring 2020. I literally was in the hospital for a week, came back the day before the first exam, asked that I take a make-up exam later because I was in the hospital, and he said no. Just about the worst professor I've had at UMD for a myriad of other reasons as well. He has impressive credentials but just cannot teach. Mind-numbing lectures with useless proofs and little to no examples. Has messy handwriting and a thick accent so be sure to sit upfront if you want to understand anything. The 8am discussion sessions didn't help either. Absolutely dreadful exams. Only passed by the curve and teaching myself via the textbook. I simply cannot overstate how awful his class was. Avoid at all costs.
Raymond Schram STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 02/24/2022	I took AP Stat which is pretty close to the course material, so I might be a bit biased, but I thought Ray was a great prof. He was funny and kept the 75 minute lectures entertaining. His exams are also pretty easy as long as you do the examples in class and in discussion.
Raymond Schram STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 01/20/2022	If you're looking to see a (not very good) stand up comedy special every week, but not actually learn any content Ray's your guy. I think he emphasizes being relatable in class to keep engagement, but he spends too much time on that leaving all of his lessons rushed. He's not prepared to teach at all and rushes through content. On top of that, his handwriting's pretty bad so symbols tend to get mixed up which is bad if you're actually trying to take notes. Also sometimes he'll completely mess up a lecture and go through the same material in the next class (but corrected (supposedly)). Honestly, if he actually taught well, he could have let us out early 45 minutes every lecture (for a 75 min long class). Pray for a good TA because they will make or break your experience. The graded things however are not bad at all, quizzes are straight forward, but he tends to be unclear on what they're actually about. And tests are almost exactly like the practice exam. Don't sign up for the earliest discussion section though because a lot of the quizzes have errors, which are corrected halfway through the quiz and you wont get extra time to account for the error. Literally every single test I've taken with him has had some type of typo. The final for example, had a typo that made the problem unsolvable and Ray had to correct it 3 times during the exam to get the question right. In general however tests are very easy and you have a lot of time to do them. TLDR: If you can learn things on your own, and/or have a good TA, you'll be fine. If you have a hard time learning things on your own, don't take him.
Susan Mazzullo STAT400 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 01/11/2022	Can't really imagine a better choice for STAT400, she's a very good and easy teacher. We had test corrections on our two midterms, and we got up to 80% back on the first midterm. The tests weren't even that hard in the first place. I would also barely go to lecture/pay attention in the second half of the semester, but her slides were good enough to learn off of that. She does a lot of practice problems in class to make sure you know the concepts. I guess one complaint could be that she moves too slow, and she probably does, but she really hammers in concepts this way. She even canceled the third midterm because people complained that it was too close to the final. The R projects were super easy too since she literally gives all the commands to you and you just change the numbers. And, you can tell that she truly cares about her students and makes sure that everyone can get an A even in a class of ~300 kids.
Raymond Schram STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 01/02/2022	I had Ray as a TA for MATH241 (calc 3) before having him for STAT400. They say you either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself the villain. Ray as a TA was better than Ray as a professor. He's not prepared and makes up questions on the spot. His exams are not bad at all. In terms of graded stuff, that is all good. I really only go to lecture because he's a fun character and it's chill. However, if you really just want to learn the topics you could just read the textbook and go to discussion. TLDR: If you are bad at math (likely taking MATH113 and MATH120), don't take him. If you are good at math (likely taking MATH246H and STAT401/401), take him.
Jonathan Fernandes STAT400 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 01/01/2022	If you want to learn the material, don't take him. Not great at lecturing, but an "easy" prof. No minus grades, which was nice. Exams were easy. Weekly homework solutions were given in discussion (before the hw was due). Weekly quizzes that weren't too bad. If you did well in CMSC250, you'll be fine with the first half of the course. If you've never taken discrete math, I don't know if he's the best prof. Really nice guy.
Jonathan Fernandes STAT400 Anonymous 12/30/2021	Fernandes is a very nice prof, and a bit unpredictable in a good way. For the midterm he said to memorize the distributions, then he put the list of distributions on the midterm. For the final he said to memorize estimators, then he changed his mind and made the exam open note. He has review videos online which match the lecture content. His lecture style may be difficult to follow but he spends a lot of time reviewing material throughout the semester. He also gives bonus quizzes for practice. He is very receptive to student concerns and helpful in office hours, he really wants you to succeed.
Jonathan Fernandes STAT400 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/27/2021	Excellent professor. Homeworks can be pretty difficult, but the discussion sections are pretty much dedicated to going over the whole homework assignment the day before it's due, so they're manageable. The exams were very fair and closely resembled the study guide and practice questions. R projects are generally pretty straightforward, and Dr. Fernandes records videos walking through each assignment in detail. His lectures can be a bit boring sometimes, but are supplemented by a number of very well made explanation videos that give a succinct overview of each concept. Overall, Dr. Fernandes is an excellent professor and I would recommend him to anyone who is taking STAT400.
Raymond Schram STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/27/2021	Pros: -Exams are easy. If you go to his review sessions and understand his review test, you should be expecting at least a 90%. -Projects are easy. They take around 1-2 hours to complete. -Ray has a humorous personality. The one counterweight to the temptation of slamming my head against the desk numerous of times. Cons: -Ray comes to lectures extremely unprepared. Typically he'll start off strong and begin to freestyle content as we progress. This gets annoying when he freestyles content that is actually important and spends too much time on topics that aren't relevant. Luckily, his exams are familiar questions, so we don't get completely screwed over(that's what separates him from a 1-2 star) -Them weekly quizzes. Unlike the exams, these are very hit or miss. Sometimes the questions are a walk in the park while sometimes you're just hoping for some particle credit. However, I will say the TAs do go over similar questions during discussion, BUT, sometimes they don't / don't go over it clearly. Make sure to ask questions in discussion. If Ray keeps the same style of teaching I would say there is no harm in choosing him.
Susan Mazzullo STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/26/2021	She is one of the few professors at UMD that truly cares about students and actively tries to help them. She gave us ample opportunities for extra credit, allowed notes on exams, and test corrections afterward. All she wanted was for us to learn something from the course and enjoy doing so. Honestly, as easy as this course was, I truly did learn. Many concepts have still stuck with me past the course. If you can take Mazzulo, do it. She is inspiring and a breath of fresh air in a bureaucratic teaching system.
Jonathan Fernandes STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/26/2021	Dr. Fernandes is a good lecturer and he cares about every student. The course is fairly structured and he offers options for those students that want to seek beyond the knowledge of the course. Exams are fair and similar to the study guides he provided. Home works are challenging but the TA basically gives you the answer during discussions. R projects are not bad. Overall this was a very pleasant experience with Dr. Fernandes!
Raymond Schram STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/26/2021	Ray is a cool guy, but holy hell are lectures absolutely useless. They are fun to watch, but honestly my TA in a 40 minute discussion section taught what takes Ray 2 entire lectures to teach. By the end of the semester I simply would not go to lectures since it would be faster to learn everything in my discussion section and on my own. At least the exams are very fair, however if you want a prof to actually teach you I would avoid him.
Susan Mazzullo STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/24/2021	Very good professor. Cares a lot about her students and always is willing to explain things or help out. The class itself was almost TOO easy to be honest. She gave bonus points on every exam, she let you regrade your exams for up to 80% points back, my 85 -> 97. She even cancelled one exam to not stress us out before finals.
Susan Mazzullo STAT400 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/22/2021	Great professor! She explains topics well, and is genuinely a nice person. Her exams are fair, and she does a great job of accomdating student requests. When I took it Fall 2019 I remember she let us redo the questions we got wrong on exam 1 for half credit back, which was really nice. She also has plenty of other opportunities for extra credit.
Jonathan Fernandes STAT400 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/22/2021	Dr. Fernandes is great!! I'd admit his homework and quizzes are kind of difficult(esp his homework, but discussion with the TA is basically a lifesaver for this). His exams are pretty much similar to the review and his class is kind of difficult in terms of learning the topics, but overall it isn't hard to get a high grade. Doesn't teach too well b/c he tends to focus on concepts rather than examples as well, which can be overwhelming especially when you don't know how to apply the concepts.
Raymond Schram STAT400 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/15/2021	Ray is smart, and grades STAT400 easy. He is very funny and actually makes class interesting. Additionally, his quizzes closely mirror the problems he does in lecture; similarly, his exams closely mirror the practice exam and class material. However, he is often unprepared and overall not that great at actually teaching. He often spends too much time on joking around during lectures and sometimes only gets through 2 or 3 examples during a 75 min lecture. He doesn't reply to emails and his material (practice exams, etc.) is usually riddled with small mistakes, typos, etc.
Susan Mazzullo STAT400 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/12/2021	Makes everything super clear. May be a bit slow, but you definitely have all the tools needed to succeed in this class. The workload is, from what I've heard, much lighter than other STAT400 professors. Highly recommend.
Jonathan Fernandes STAT400 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/08/2021	By far the best professor I had this semester. He treats everyone with respect, and if you email him with a question he normally responds back in a timely manner. He was big on students not stressing out too much about exams or projects, so he made sure to adjust accordingly. I will say that he has a tendency to get side tracked in lecture, so be prepared for him to go on a few tangents. During the second week of class someone air dropped him a meme and he spent a solid 20 minutes talking about wasting other people's time...yeah exactly. Exams are fair(and kind of easy), and the homework gets more straightforward as the semester progresses. Homework assignments are long, but not difficult, and the quizzes are the reason why I will not have an A+ in the class. HIGHLY HIGHLY Recommend taking this course with Fernandes.
Raymond Schram STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/07/2021	Ray is a nice, charming guy but a very meh professor. The only reason people do well in his class is because the content and exams aren't too difficult. The teaching style isn't ideal but is enough. It's clear that he's very knowledgeable, but it's also clear that he's unprepared for lectures, stuttering and making examples as he goes. Not a terrible professor but if given the choice, take someone else before him.
Raymond Schram STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/02/2021	Lectures are rather unorganized and it feels like he's coming up with examples "on the spot," which don't always accurately demonstrate the material being taught. As previous reviews have mentioned your best bet is to simply read the textbook if you're able to digest the mathematics jargon well enough. The saving grace, however, are that the assignments and course are relatively well-organized. Weekly quizzes that generally go over the past 2-3 lectures with review beforehand, a decently accurate schedule that goes over what sections in the book should be discussed each lecture, and very helpful practice midterms, which basically cover every concept on his exams, with solutions are duly provided. So as long as you learn the material, either from him or some other source, the course isn't too much work to get through and easy enough at that.
Susan Mazzullo STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/01/2021	Amazing professor! She is one teacher that actually wants her students to do well. She gives a lot of opportunities to get extra credit, and get points back on tests. Also, she records classes which is nice.
Raymond Schram STAT400 Anonymous 11/20/2021	Very unorganized and unprepared. The teaching style is way too casual to be anything useful (e.g., he spends tons of time on irrelevant jokes and would pause for applause after explaining some examples). His examples are sometimes hard to follow and miss a big picture of how the examples relate to the concepts being taught. I learned most of the stuff by reading the textbook by myself. Exams are not too hard. Emailed him twice about questions from the textbook and he never replied.
Jonathan Fernandes STAT400 Anonymous 11/06/2021	Not the best at explaining concepts, but he's a very kindhearted and understanding professor. He goes out of his way to help students wherever they need help. He also grades things leniently gives many opportunities for extra credit. Tests are very fair - lots of practice materials are provided. I especially appreciate his decision to eliminate "minus" grades (he assigns grades of A+, A, B+, B, etc). Good choice for STAT400.
Mestiyage Gunatilleka STAT400 Anonymous 07/12/2021	I had Danul for both MATH240 and STAT400. He does a much better job teaching STAT400 than MATH240. Overall I would say his lectures are average they can sometimes be confusing and he can skip over material. The books however for MATH240 and STAT400 are phenomenal also Danul does make an effort to clear up any misconceptions and help students if needed. The saving grace for this class is that the practice exams are usually extremely similar to the actual exam. My recommendation for both classes is read the book, do the homework/practice exams and you can easily pull at least a B.
Hatice Sahinoglu STAT400 Expecting a C Anonymous 07/09/2021	She is not a good teacher. She tends to ramble quite a bit and her lectures feel like a waste of time. She was also argumentative with students on multiple occasions about providing answer keys to review questions (she refused to provide any answer keys). I mostly learned material from the TAs who were much better at teaching the material than she was.
Timothy Pilachowski STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 07/08/2021	He's an average professor. Not terrible but also not amazing. He isn't super helpful when people ask questions, but he isn't mean about it or anything-- he just doesn't explain super well on the spot. I never really watched the pre recorded lectures much, just read the textbook and skimmed his videos for help if I needed it. His two midterms were exactly like the old exams in the testbank, so definitely study those.
Jonathan Fernandes STAT400 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 06/26/2021	Dr. Fernandes is truly the man. Great lecturer, and really cares about his students' success like no other.
Hatice Sahinoglu STAT400 Expecting a B- Anonymous 05/20/2021	Not a good professor for this class IMO. She is clearly very knowledgeable about statistics, and proves everything, so if that style resonates with you then she is probably worth taking. However, for everyone else, she rambles a lot and struggles explaining concepts in english. She is also easily distracted by students asking random questions in Zoom chat that may or may not have anything to do with the material. You can do well in her class by copying down everything she says and writes in lectures, and by reading the textbook, but you will not get a very high quality education in this class overall.
Mestiyage Gunatilleka STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/18/2021	One of the best instructors I've had in MATH/STAT at UMD. He was very nice and gave fair homeworks and exams. A lot of the homework he and the TA go over to help you on them, and they prepare you well for exam questions. He could be more clear in his study guides for exams but I think this is fine because the exams aren't that tough if you do the homeworks. Some of the harder concepts he explains in what seems at first a rather obtuse way, but once you get through it and do examples it gets easier to understand. HE also takes a lot of questions in the middle of lecture (sometimes too many dare I say).
Hatice Sahinoglu STAT400 Anonymous 05/18/2021	the midterms and quizzes were alright, but the final was way harder than it needed to be. Pretty much only survived off of the review sessions from the TA. The material isn't even that hard but she makes things way harder than it needs to be and doesn't provide answer keys to practice exams.
Mestiyage Gunatilleka STAT400 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/17/2021	First off, he's an average lecturer in my opinion, though he makes an effort to clear up misconceptions and overall seems very approachable. With that said, I ended up missing the final and he was nice enough to let me take a make-up exam the next day, which he really had no obligation to do. As such, I'd say he's overall a decent professor but he does care to help you through course-related troubles you experience.
Hatice Sahinoglu STAT400 Anonymous 05/13/2021	Please do not take her. She does not give answer keys to practice tests that she provides nor does she go over the practice test. Just went over 2 1/2 new sections the within a of the exam. Just do your best to get another teacher. Also rambles during lecture and has very illegible handwriting at times.
Mestiyage Gunatilleka STAT400 Expecting a P Anonymous 05/06/2021	Don't take any class with this man. Bad lecturer with poor explanations. Exams do not reflect textbook explanations as he says what so ever and his study guides are completely garbage.
Jonathan Fernandes STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/01/2021	If you have to take or want to take stat 400, take it with Fernandes. One of the best teachers and really cares about the success of his students.
Jonathan Fernandes STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 04/29/2021	Fernandes really cares about his students and provides everything they will ever need for their success. He provides excellent notes, help with the homeworks and R projects and even Guided Study Sessions with TAs. The content is decently interesting but he presents it in a way that is understandable and relevant. My only critiques with the class are the homework assignments. The homework assignments will be the most difficult thing you will do compared to the quizzes or exams. I really wish the homeworks would be more accurate the questions encountered on a quiz or test. Other than that he has very generous weights, provides a 10% buffer on each exam, and provides a bonus points curve. Oh and he doesn't do A-. If you have a choice take stat 400 with fernandes. Recently he discovered that some people were cheating, and so now he is making the final only during a select time period (rather than 24 hours like the mid terms were). I believe this is unfair towards the students who do take the class and their learnings seriously but I guess it is what it is.
Susan Mazzullo STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 04/07/2021	Great professor. Sweet and very helpful. She gives all the resources you need to succeed.
Susan Mazzullo STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 04/07/2021	One of the nicest professors I've ever had. She wants everyone to pass, her projects are super simple, and her exams are really straightforward. She also lets you get back partial credit if you correct mistakes on exams. Only downside is that she's too nice. We're in a Zoom class and some students start spamming the chat with worthless questions, and she still takes the time to answer everyone.
Jonathan Fernandes STAT400 Expecting a B Anonymous 04/06/2021	he's ok i guess. alot of his quiz and exam questions are poorly worded which makes it way harder than it needs to be. however, he clearly cares about his students and makes sure he tries to accommodate everyone that struggles. i have no idea how he will be in person though.
Hatice Sahinoglu STAT400 Expecting a B- Anonymous 04/02/2021	Worst professor I have ever had. Does not care about the students and is very difficult to understand. If you are dead set on taking STAT400 and she is the only option I would recommend just waiting to take it with someone else, its not worth dealing with her.
Susan Mazzullo STAT400 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 01/24/2021	Very nice professor. Clear, relevant slideshows that prepare you very well for exams. Numerous resources are available to help you get an A in this class.
Susan Mazzullo STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/25/2020	Dr. Mazzullo is an extremely nice and caring professor who teaches the material in a straightforward, clear way. The only downside was that she didn't disable the chat feature in Zoom at the beginning of the semester, which allowed a bunch of annoying and pointless messages to distract everyone from learning the material.
Jonathan Fernandes STAT400 Anonymous 12/20/2020	One of the best professors at UMD. Would 100% recommend to take his class. He is so accommodating and he genuinely cares about his students. I have never seen a professor care about his students so much. He gives you handwritten notes that are so comprehensive and really help with prepping for the quizzes and exams. All of his exams were fair and he handles online classes really well.
Jonathan Fernandes STAT400 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/18/2020	He is a great professor, always very prepared, always willing to go the extra mile for students to help them succeed. Take his class if you can!
Scott Preston STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/13/2020	Had him over Spring 2019 actually and he was very nice with the transition. He is very understanding IMO, and every time I approached him in person he was always friendly. He made a whole website for the class with all the resources on it and I felt that was very nice of him. However, I stopped going to lectures because they were very boring and I didn't really learn much in there, but I think that might just be more of a stat400 problem than his problem. I also remember exams and quizzes were pretty straight forward and weren't like gotcha questions
Hatice Sahinoglu STAT400 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/10/2020	I thought her lectures were clear, and she went over a lot of examples to show us how to use the formulas. Most of the time she went over each concept/formula multiple times, so I felt pretty laid back/not stressed during lectures. She also gave a set of practice problems every week with solutions. I did notice that only 1/5 of the class showed up to lecture and almost no one came to my discussion section (it was usually me and 2 other people). So that might be why people aren't doing well in her class/coming here to give her a bad review. If you take her class my advice is to copy down everything she writes down in lecture and show up to discussion every week to copy down the problems/solutions there. Do that and you should be fine.
Hatice Sahinoglu STAT400 Expecting a W Anonymous 12/07/2020	Worst professor I've ever had. Lectures are confusing, grade distribution is extremely unfair (1 quiz question is worth 1% of your overall grade), and she is not accommodating to student concerns.
Jonathan Fernandes STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/01/2020	He's an amazing professor! He is very accommodating when there are legitimate concerns and truly cares about his students. If you ever need any help, he offers lot of opportunities to meet with him during office hours or before class (this is during COVID so all online). I have never done statistics before, but I have been able to do really well with this class even with it being all online. Homeworks can be challenging sometimes, but he gives lots of time to do it and you can ask for help during office hours. R Projects are not hard if you go to his R-Mondays (help session specifically for learning R), and he usually records these. He provides notes online and records his lectures, so you can always go back to review. Hands-down one of the best professors, you can't go wrong with him!
Jonathan Fernandes STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/29/2020	he's really nice and very willing to help students but i dont like him because he gives way too much hw and doesn't explain concepts very well imo the concepts studied in stat400 are actually so simple but somehow his lectures overcomplicate them and make them difficult to learn. personally i have difficulty reading math textbooks so learning mostly from lectures took way too much time. He kind of just writes a bunch of numbers down and assumes you understand what he's talking about. sorry I dont speak math - im not a math major I was watching lectures asynch tho so i couldn't ask questions. BTW he was SUUUPER open to questions and stopping lecture to answer ur questions. he gives 1 quiz, 1 r project, 1 hw every single week. its so fucking annoying. chill tf out. the hw problems take so long, the R projects are annoying, the quizzes will hurt ur grade if u don't understand the concepts. he makes an introductory stat course harder than it needs to be with an unnecessary emphasis on R coding
Susan Mazzullo STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/26/2020	One of the best and most lenient teachers out there. She wants everyone to pass and makes sure you really understand the material. How many professors allow you to correct your exam mistakes for partial credit?
Jonathan Fernandes STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/20/2020	Great professor with great notes. Not only a good teacher, but also a pretty nice person. He has been very responsive to student feedback and made significant changes to the structure of the class based on it. Would definitely recommend. A little note is that there are some particular small matters that upset him, so just be cautious.
Hatice Sahinoglu STAT400 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 11/13/2020	She reviews things in lecture too much. The first 10 minutes of every lecture is worthless. The material is overall really simple so just use the textbook to get 90s on exams.
Hatice Sahinoglu STAT400 Expecting a W Anonymous 11/10/2020	She is the worst professor I have ever had. I took her online this past semester because of corona (I didn't choose to as her ratings are awful. I was placed in her class instead of the professor I chose because UMD's protocol for this pandemic is to make life as difficult for students as possible). She has a thick accent and has no clue how to go over material. She's incredibly disorganized, makes the material way harder then it needs to be, and does not respond to emails. The TA's were all international students who barely spoke English and were clearly operating on different time zones as they too never responded to email. First W I had to take in my college career and my GPA is a 3.8 and I work my ass off. In short, stay away AT ALL COSTS, and if this is your only option, TAKE IT ANOTHER SEMESTER.
Susan Mazzullo STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 10/30/2020	Best teacher in my college life
Jonathan Fernandes STAT400 Anonymous 09/24/2020	he's such a sweet teacher and really understanding. I wasn't really sure about him because he didn't have any reviews for the class but he is a really great teacher.
Paul Smith STAT400 Anonymous 08/21/2020	Horrible professor. Is obviously very intelligent but does not know how to teach. Talks about one thing while presenting notes about another thing, goes over no examples in class, and expects you to learn the problems based on loose theory presented in class.
Timothy Pilachowski STAT400 Expecting an A+ StardustGogeta 08/15/2020	Professor Pilachowski does a great job of teaching statistics. I took AP statistics in high school, and the two classes are almost identical in content. (The differences are that STAT400 includes a tiny bit of integration and some more specific named probability distributions, while AP statistics includes hypothesis testing and linear regressions.) In comparison, Pilachowski was a much better instructor who could teach the concepts in a clear and organized fashion. However, I did find that he was not very helpful with answering any questions if you were confused about the subject matter.
Scott Preston STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 07/11/2020	Caught multiple people using chegg during the final and XFed all of them. Wasn't nice at all
Guangyu Xi STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 06/11/2020	Mr. Xi is a good professor. His grading helps students a lot.
Guangyu Xi STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 06/08/2020	Dr. Xi is a nice professor. His assignments are straightforward.
Scott Preston STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/25/2020	I found the class incredibly boring and dry. Try your very best to attend and pay attention in lecture. The tests/homeworks/quizzes are super fair and generally easy, and Scott’s pretty understanding. He does a lot of stuff in R and encourages you to use it instead of old methods that the textbook uses. He overexplains the R stuff, and it’s pretty interesting, so I wouldn’t worry about the learning curve.
Scott Preston STAT400 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 05/15/2020	Good overall professor. Gives fair exams. Lectures can sometimes be a mess, he uses a lot of examples to illustrate new concepts before introducing them, which works for some but not for others.
Hatice Sahinoglu STAT400 Anonymous 05/01/2020	terrible lectures, makes class so confusing and exams are nothing like anything we are given in class or discussion. Learn from my mistake and don't take this class with her
Guangyu Xi STAT400 Anonymous 04/19/2020	If this is the only professor left, wait until next semester.
Scott Preston STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 03/15/2020	He's kind of a cutie professor, like smart-white-middle age-dad type. His lectures were fine if you could follow (I could but most people couldnt) but he posts the notes online. Or you can just learn from the textbook because tbh he would explain like reasoning behind some of the formulas during lecture and thats just useless. Exams are very fair, he gave a practice test, and theres quizzes every friday. Also he does graded HW on R but also gives you a sheet on how to do the problems. pretty good class overall! HE ALSO DOESNT DO MINUS GRADES! AN A IS 90-97! A+ is 97-100 and so on. he might change this by next semester tho because he just moved here and maybe doesn't realize that Maryland gives +/- grades.
Casey Cremins STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 03/06/2020	Lectures are disorganized and unclear. He knows the topic well but his lectures are not thorough and are hard to follow. I learned more by reading the textbook and teaching myself than lectures. That said, his weekly quizzes were not too bad, usually similar to a homework problem, and his exams were mostly fair.
Guangyu Xi STAT400 Anonymous 03/05/2020	Xi is a borderline useless professor. Lectures are dry and obtuse. He spends most of lecture doing unnecessary proofs before moving on to the next topic at lightning speed. Homework requires the textbook. Quizzes are easy, exams are absolutely brutal. There are two midterms with very few questions, so if you bomb one question you're screwed. Do not make the mistake of taking his class.
Timothy Pilachowski STAT400 Expecting a B Anonymous 02/16/2020	DO NOT TAKE HIS STAT 400. It's boring. He just reads the slides. You don't have to take his class, Just stay at home, and do the test bank.
Casey Cremins STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 01/28/2020	The only good thing about this class is that Cremins is a nice guy and is respectful to his students. However, he is the worst lecturer and often explains concepts in class that will never show up on exams or quizzes. TAs are okay and the quizzes are based entirely on the homework. I would not recommend going to lecture. Instead, use that time to review the textbook by yourself and keep redoing homework questions. He allows one page of notes on exams, which is nice, and the exams aren't too bad overall. The exams are also based on the homework questions. If you have no previous stats experience, this will probably be a rough class and if you're not good at teaching yourself, drop this class immediately.
Timothy Pilachowski STAT400 Anonymous 01/27/2020	for each class, he won't cover a lot and most of them are easy to understand. We have quiz each week on discussion section and have webassign homework almost each week. He sometimes raised his voice suddenly during the class which scared me several times. He doesn't give any - so that for exmaple, you can only get A or B+.
Susan Mazzullo STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 01/09/2020	Mrs. Mazzullo shows that she cares about her students and wants all of us to learn. First and foremost, she allowed for test corrections in each of the three midterms (1/2 points back for Midterm 1, 1/4 points back for Midterm 2, and 1 point back for Midterm 3). Moreover, whenever she can't lecture due to some things coming up, she would post a video lecture with an attached quiz. Since the quiz has unlimited attempts, they were an easy way to not only obtain free points but also learn the material better. I thoroughly enjoyed having her as my STAT400 instructor, and recommend anyone who has a chance of signing up for her classes to do so.
Casey Cremins STAT400 Expecting a B Anonymous 11/25/2019	I don't even know where to start. I can't understand his accent during the lectures, and the times when I was there he spoke to the board and wrote out example problems I could have taught myself. He scheduled exams on Halloween and the day before Thanksgiving break with the full ability to change those exam dates but choosing not to. My TA spoke broken English, so it was difficult to understand her during the discussions, but at least the quizzes are easy. You'll want to study for the exams because they're harder than I expected compared to the quizzes, but they're not unfair. I've also heard that he doesn't do +/-, and based on my mid-semester grade I believe that. If you have to take this professor, Godspeed and I wish you the best of luck. You're gonna need it.
Susan Mazzullo STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/22/2019	TAKE FOR STAT400 - She's a great professor and she goes over every topic thoroughly. Lectures can be a little slow but thats better than them being fast. SO much extra credit
Susan Mazzullo STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/15/2019	Super nice, great professor. There are three easy exams and a final, and a few quizzes. Since the quizzes aren't every week, a lot of people wouldn't show up to discussion. We are allowed to bring a sheet of notes into the exam, and she also let us do test corrections on the first and second exam (for 1/2 points back on the first and 1/4 points back on the second). She must have canceled lectures at least 8 times over the semester for personal things that came up for her. When that happened, she would post a video quiz which was super easy, and you could retake it as many times as you wanted.
Peter Nandori STAT400 Expecting an A- Anonymous 11/06/2019	his lectures are weird..like the problems he puts on the lecture slides and midterm practice are way harder than the actual midterms. i was always freaking out before exams because i would never be able to do most of the midterm practice problems. also he barely puts any points for each exam, so if you lose like 3 points you're already almost down a letter grade. i didn't really like his teaching style at all. he's not the worst professor by any means but there are definitely better professors out there for this class.
Casey Cremins STAT400 Anonymous 07/08/2019	Pros: Exams are reasonable Class isn't too difficult Cons: He has to be the most boring lecturer out there You will not get anything out of his lectures (read the textbook instead) I would not recommend taking Cremins for Stat400!
Casey Cremins STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 06/01/2019	Possibly the worst lecturer at UMD. Don't bother going. Exams are alright. He pulls the same stunt every semester for STAT400: first two midterms are really easy, third one is like 50% Calc 3, which isn't a prereq for the course. So watch out for that.
Casey Cremins STAT400 Anonymous 05/29/2019	Confusing lectures, so only way to learn is through the textbook. His exams are pretty similar to the past exams and homework problems though, so that's a plus. He also let's you use cheat sheets which are lifesavers. However, the exams only contain 3-4 questions each, and he throws curveballs sometimes, so if you miss a question, you're screwed. Doesn't use the plus minus system, so your B+ is the same as B, or C- is same as C which can be a blessing for some while a frustration for others. Wouldn't take this professor again.
Hatice Sahinoglu STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 04/06/2019	Easy class if you show up and take notes. Exams aren't bad at all. Professor is nice, and a decent lecturer. Will need to buy textbook for web assign though.
Peter Nandori STAT400 Expecting a B wshipper 04/03/2019	His lectures were clear, and all of his examples were well defined. Overall, he was a good person, and seemed to really care about the success of his students, even in such a large class. On the days he couldn't physically make it to office hours, which was only once or twice I believe, he would set them up through Skype so people could still ask him questions as needed. We did have required homeworks, but for someone like me who won't do work unless it's graded (no matter how much I try to think otherwise) it's incredibly useful. We were not allowed to have a cheat sheet for the midterms, but this meant we were able to get a lot of partial credit for things like writing down formulas and showing our steps. For our final, we were allowed to use a cheat sheet, since he thought it would be unfair to test us on our rote memorization skills for things that we learned back in the beginnings of class. If you prefer a rigid class structure with useful lectures, and don't want to teach yourself out of the book, this is a great teacher to have.
John Millson STAT400 Expecting a B Anonymous 02/07/2019	His lectures are not very useful. In fact, listening to him may even confuse you more. The only saving grace is that his class is structured for you to pass. Homework of 4-5 questions every week with a quiz in discussion, which is just 1 of those questions. Midterms are based on his old exams, so make sure to practice them and learn all the distribution formulae
Casey Cremins STAT400 lactaid 01/27/2019	I found Dr. Cremins to be a great professor. He gives a lot of past exams to review from, does examples, and is especially helpful during office hours. I recommend him as a professor.
Casey Cremins STAT400 Expecting a B fellowterp2022 01/21/2019	The only reason I earned a B instead of a C+ is because I worked my ass off for the final. Finessed a 192/200 on the final, don't know how, probably curved. His finals definitely maintain a pattern from his past semesters in terms of what kinds of problems he puts on it. I went to the first lecture, and didn't go to anymore after that (except for midterms and the final of course). This man's teaching ability... I don't even know. It's difficult to understand his mumbling/thick accent (he's American but... idek), especially with a lecture hall of students and without a mic. And you can't even see his sloppy handwriting on the CHALKBOARD. Me and a lot of other people were better off learning from the textbook for quizzes and exams. This was my first experience ever learning stats (didn't do AP Stat) so I can officially say this experience has made my view on statistics a negative one.
Casey Cremins STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/19/2018	You will have to read the book very well in order to pass this course. Lucky for you, the book is one of the most well-written I've ever had and is super easy to understand. Lecturing is admittedly not one of his greatest strengths, but he is a nice person and cares about his students. Further, his exams are fair, and can be challenging, so even though he didn't teach as much, I left this class with a solid grasp of introductory statistics and probability.
Casey Cremins STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/13/2018	I learned nothing from him nor his TA. I learned everything on my own, and from the book. His quizzes are very easy, they are direct questions from the homework. As long as you study the book and do the homework problems you will do fine.
John Millson STAT400 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/13/2018	Very unorganized, hard to understand in lecture. However the class is very easy and especially easy just to pass. I would only recommend if no other good teachers are available and you do not care about how much you learn. I say this because I did not learn anything and I did not put any effort and was able to coast by.
Hatice Sahinoglu STAT400 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/11/2018	Only reason why I gave a 2 was because people from Milson's class came to our lectures. That's how I knew that Hatice wasn't the worst. She cannot explain concepts and I learned entirely from the mandatory homeworks and discussions.
Casey Cremins STAT400 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 10/28/2018	He is a nice guy but sucks at teaching. You have to learn from the book because he will not teach you the necessary material. He will test you on the stuff in the book that was not taught in lecture.
John Millson STAT400 Expecting a B Anonymous 07/11/2018	One of the worst teachers I've ever had. Do not expect to learn anything in this class. He mumbles in class so you can't hear anything he says. When he writes on the blackboard, it is usually illegible. Nobody goes to his lectures. However, I would still suggest taking his class because it requires little effort. If you do his practice tests, you are guaranteed to pass. His curve is very helpful. As long as you do average, you will receive a B or higher.
John Millson STAT400 Expecting a B Anonymous 05/22/2018	Ineffective as a teacher when it comes to learning the material, brilliant when it comes to needing a grade to pass. I got an average of 65% on all the exams (Final included) and passed the class with a B (It was a C+ but he changed it shortly after for reasons I do not know). Nice enough guy personality wise, but not easy to follow as an instructor at all. His curve is EXTREMELY generous. He even told us the first day, he sets up the class to help students pass with at worst a C. On a 250 point scale, Exams (2 of them) are worth 50 points each, The homework quizzes on discussions every Friday are 50 points (scaled down at the end of the year since they accumulate more than 50 points) and the final exam is 100 points. Out of those 250 points i accumulated 170 points. And that was a B. Take that for what it is worth. If you just need to pass this class and not taking any more classes above Stat400, Millson is your guy. I am giving him 4/5 just for that nice curve.
John Millson STAT400 Expecting a B Anonymous 05/13/2018	He is usually good at explaining but will miss points or get confused and start teaching other topics. He also starts lecture 10 minutes before class really starts so if you aren't on time, you'll miss out on a whole section of notes.
Casey Cremins STAT400 Expecting a B Anonymous 05/09/2018	The good: Casey is a nice guy and is respectful to his students. His quizzes and exams are basically the homework problems so there are no surprises. He allows for a formula sheet for exams which you can just cram example problems onto. His infamous Austrian/British accent is weird and is often full of stutters but you get used to it over time and it does not really take away from his lectures. He tries to makes jokes occasionally but no one can really understand them. The bad: His handwriting is inconsistent as it can range from neat and legible to straight up Egyptian hieroglyphics. He does speak a little too soft and his mic is trash so sit near the front. His lectures get stale fast and a lot of the times he will start doing proofs of equations and concepts which you will never need to know for quizzes/exams. Advice: You don't need to put in a whole lot of work into this class but make sure you understand all the related homework problems before quizzes/exams.
Susan Mazzullo STAT400 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 04/17/2018	worst teacher ever doesn't know how to teach. Only way to get good grade in this class is to get the past exams from someone.
Casey Cremins STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 04/11/2018	Cremins is a really nice guy, but pretty inept at lecturing. If you go to his office hours, he's happy to help you or even just chat, but his lectures basically consist of him mumbling into the microphone and writing vague things on the board. He follows the textbook exactly though, which makes up for it. The quizzes and exams are also really easy, especially if you keep up with the textbook problems.
Casey Cremins STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 04/11/2018	Not as bad as everyone makes him out to be. His lectures are VERY slow but exams were a joke and so straight forward. No surprises, easy to do well in his class. He makes subtle jokes no one laughs at but are actually kinda funny. Side note: this man has the most ambiguous accent ever.
Natalia Tchetcherina STAT400 Expecting an A cnaka 01/24/2018	Natalia's lectures consisted of her reading slides from a board. She has difficult to understand and I absorbed very little of the material from her, the only reason I went to class was due to her attendance requirements. (I do not believe she made the slides) The homework was the most challenging parts of the course and did a good job expanding on what was done in class. The exams deviated very little from the practice exams, so while some of the questions should have been challenging, they were not.
Hatice Sahinoglu STAT400 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/19/2017	So the class itself was pretty easy up until the last two topics. The averages for both the midterms were good(90 and a 76), and the exams were exactly like the practice exams she gave beforehand. However, after the 2nd exam things started going downhill. I felt that we barely went over the material needed. The final exam focused only on topics after the 2nd midterm and she gave 0 practice on the final exam(she is a new teacher so we had nothing to go off of). Obviously this explains the insanely low average for the final, 65, and she refused to create a fair curve. For some reason she believes a 95% or higher is an A but a 60 is a C-, very unfairly weighted. Avoid this teacher unlesse you think you can get a 95+ on all assignments/quizzes. In addition, I also felt that the TAs had no idea what the professor was trying to do so discussions were helpful but often didn't relate at all to what we learned.
Hatice Sahinoglu STAT400 Anonymous 12/18/2017	Lack of examples, goes way too in depth proving formulas. Gave us literally nothing for the final (no practice exam, no information at all. Shocker that the average was a 65 even though the first exam where she gave us stuff averaged a 90). Avoid if possible
Hatice Sahinoglu STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/19/2017	Lectures focus on proofs and proving the formulas that we use. When it comes to doing examples in class she does not really cover them too much, but assigns homework on webassign every week that usually covers the topics in class. STAT400: The class in general is very easy. I personally did not find a need to go to class, just completed HW assignments and read the textbook occasionally.
Dmitry Dolgopyat STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 01/06/2016	You will not learn anything from his lectures. He will spend all of the time writing down formulas and answering questions without any explanation The worst professor ever. Avoid at all cost.
Timothy Pilachowski STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/28/2014	Pilachowski is frequently late to class and never has time to answer questions during class time. Given that, it is not hard to get an A in his class. Print out his lecture outlines and attend all his lectures. He holds reviews before exams which is really nice and use the testbank to study! He's exams always follow the same template, and for each exam he let us have a formula sheet - front and back- and for the final we got 3! And do the hand in homework. It was easy points especially since my TA graded easily and he drops your 2 lowest scores. I can't say I learned a lot of statistics, but it was a fairly easy A.
Dmitry Dolgopyat STAT400 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/22/2014	The professor was okay for Stat400. He seemed very nice and wanted to help. However, his lecturng was not good and only a very small amount of people attended. He puts sample responses on Elms before the midterms and final which are very helpful. He also has homework solutions which help teach you the material and prepare you for the weekly quizzes, a generous 40 percent of your grade.
Dmitry Dolgopyat STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/14/2014	He is impossible to understand. He speaks very quietly, has a thick accent, and is overall a poor lecturer. Lecture is awful, and the majority of the learning in this class is done on your own or in discussion. I had an excellent TA which made discussion tolerable, but I've heard from friends in other sections that several of his TA's are not good. Grading-wise, this class isn't difficult. Weekly quizzes are usually taken directly from homework problems, and the exams were basically mirror images of the practice exams we were given.
Timothy Pilachowski STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 10/14/2014	I took STAT400 after having not done any Calculus for a few years. The Calculus in the class was fairly simple as this isn't a Calculus class, you're simply using it to calculate certain values (Covariance, mean, etc.) Professor Pilachowski went through his PowerPoint slides each class and posted supplementary material on the course website. I thought he did an excellent job at explaining the material, and the students that didn't do well were simply not interested in putting the time. I had to relearn parts of Calculus and still managed to get an A (without minus) in his class. The most annoying part of the class was his midterms. He often didn't print enough exams or answer sheets. He also doesn't give us enough time to complete the exam. I felt incredibly pressured to finish the exam on time, and rarely did anyone leave the class before the time was up. His TA Yiran Li was exceptional. I attended every discussion and never skipped, and working through sample problems was a tremendous help. For his midterms, he will post previous exams, and if you are lucky enough, your exam might look like one of them, but don't bank on it. I recommend doing the previous exams without looking at the answers, working through homework problems, and MOST IMPORTANTLY, look over material that was taught in class and not covered in the homework (Method of Moments, Maximum Likelihood, Probability Approximations). If you don't understand something, YouTube is a great help. Yes the below is true, he comes late, he doesn't notice the clock, and can be boring at times, but he is a phenomenal and lenient teacher, and if you TAKE NOTES and study hard, you can pass with an A. I didn't visit the tutors at all for this class either, so don't stress it, just do your part. I don't consider myself mathematically gifted, I just work hard enough to earn the A, and it is doable for this class. He also allows you to bring a calculator and a sheet of notes to the midterms, and the combined sheets of notes to the final. The final was far more relaxing because I was able to revise my answers multiple times and get a good grade. I often do better on the final due to having more time.
John Millson STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 08/14/2013	So I thought this class was very boring and simple even though I had literally never taken any statistics class before. BUT, if you spend 15 minutes per week reading the book and doing the problems he gave you, you should easily get an A. All the quizzes were a homework problem copied word for word. And the discussions consisted of a TA going over every problem. So for quizzes pretty much all you need is a half decent memory. The tests weren't bad (I think that over 10% of the class got a 100 on the first test) but the final was much harder than the other tests. So take this class if you want a fairly easy A and learn a tiny bit of statistics.
John Millson STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 03/04/2013	I give him 3 stars for 1 reason only- he makes up for his lack of teaching skills with easy grading. His lecture was worthless and I skipped it often and got the notes from my TA. I am not one to skip class, so this is kind of a big deal. If I had no TA to learn from I would have accomplished nothing in this course. That being said, if you want a non-time consuming basic course to fulfill requirements this is the teacher/class combo for you. If you want to pass your next class, STAT410, you may want to opt for a less lenient teacher.
Abram Kagan STAT400 Expecting a B Anonymous 08/14/2012	Guy knows his stuff, but that's about all that can be said for his teaching. I like abstract, "hard," math, and ignored the other reviews at my own peril-- the result is that I regret taking this class. Stat400 itself, a weed-out class (I guess) isn't especially hard, but I had no motivation due to the poor teaching and totally uninspired textbook. Would've had an A if not for the homework. Not recommended.
Abram Kagan STAT400 Expecting a B mathmajormane 07/07/2012	my courseevalum evaluation: Homework was weighted too heavily into computation of the final grade, as making it 30% of the total unfairly benefits students who resort to unethical methods (e.g. Cramster, solutions posted online) in order to successfully complete it on time. Textbook was difficult to learn from and uninspired (also expensive), alternatives should be considered. No partial credit was given on the homework, which was frustrating and unfair. Professor Kagan, however, was very understanding in not penalizing meaningless numerical errors on exams, though one of my midterms was graded incorrectly (in my favor). Statistical notation is confusing and was under-emphasized in lecture. disclosure: I am a math major that enjoys rigor and abstraction. I also needlessly did poorly in this course due to low motivation related to what I have discussed here. I spent less time studying for either midterm than I spent writing this evaluation. The worst thing about Professor Kagan as an instructor is that he tends to become a bit angry if students answer incorrectly in class, and then take this anger out on the student who happened to answer the question or be called on, regardless of whether the students in, say, the back row had any idea whatsoever what was going on. This greatly discourages student participation and feedback, and destroys the potential for communication between the instructor and students. It's also extremely frustrating to not understand something because of a misunderstood explanation only to have oneself berated with an angry exclamation of "No!" when one answers a question incorrectly. This made me not want to learn. Again, note that I am a math major, even though the following criticism expresses a sentiment less often neglected in the humanities: In terms of the material, the biggest failing of the course material and teaching was that we only ever discussed technical details of the material explicitly on the syllabus. What I mean to say is that there was no attempt even made (either by the textbook or the professor) to give students an introduction to the field of statistics as a discipline, or provide a deeper understanding of what we were learning. There was never any discussion of why what we were learning is important, or why we should care about it, or _exactly_ how it is used in the real world, or why the discussed material was included on the syllabus. There was no attempt made to explicitly connect together the different topics we were learning: how they relate and interact to each other, how we should think of them in relation to the field as a whole, and we gained no insight into how an actual statistician views statistics. Professor Kagan also never provided any commentary on the textbook: why is was selected, its strengths and failings, why the author made certain decisions, etc. As a result, our reading lacked objectivity, which made it harder to understand where the author was coming from. Professor Kagan was, to say the least, unenthusiastic about teaching this course, and rarely seemed to enjoy himself while lecturing. He wasn't alone-- no one in the classroom seemed to care very much, or to be having fun, and even someone with an interest in statistics might be put off by the uninspired presentation. The class also moved slowly, and I felt like skipping class to study from the textbook was actually more efficient. Additionally, questions not explicitly related to the material on the syllabus (i.e. what we "had" to cover) were discouraged even when students infrequently expressed genuine interest. To professor Kagan's credit, I can say that he really knew the material. Unfortunately, this didn't translated into clarity of exposition in lecture. It's strange.. because I can't tell exactly why, but I always felt like I had to relearn the material from the textbook after lecture. In lecture, it wasn't clear what we were doing, or why we were doing it, or if there were other ways of doing it. I would ask questions, but the thing is, I couldn't even find questions to ask which would help my understanding. I also felt social pressure from my silent peers and the professor (I worried that he would be unhappy or offended if I took up class time by asking for something to be re-explained) to not ask questions in lecture, so as not to hold the class up. I think most of the lectures went misunderstood by the majority of the students. Attendance was also regularly low, though I appreciated that it wasn't required. Another unfortunate thing about this course is that there was a lack of mathematically challenging problems on homework and exams, i.e. problems that require mathematical creativity and thinking. Rather, the problems solved were all formulaic. The difficulty of this class was in figuring out exactly what we were expected to do, and in understanding all of the confusing and sometimes ambiguous notation, i.e. needless difficulty without any didactic value, though I suppose the department needs to weed out students somehow. Unfortunately, a class like this might also discourage students with an actual interest in Statistics from taking more classes in the subject. The bottom line here is that even if this is an applications class, students should be required to do more than memorize how to formulaicly solve a certain type of problem in order to do well. This failing is also exacerbated by the instructor telling the student exactly what type of problems will be on the exams, as it amounts to only teaching for the test, and does little for anyone's actual mathematical ability. Another positive thing though was that Professor Kagan provided solutions to the exams immediately after we took them, though homework solutions were unfortunately never provided.
Sandra Cerrai STAT400 Expecting an A autonym 05/24/2012	Fairly straightforward lecturer. Her teaching strategy never moves much beyond writing formulas and doing examples. However she does try to deliver some intuition behind the math, and makes an effort to stay in touch with the class and get a sense of students' understanding, as much as possible in a large lecture. The book is not great but it gets the point across. Unfortunately HW comes from it that you must turn in. Not a terribly difficult subject, I wouldn't sweat the professor too much.
John Millson STAT400 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 05/02/2012	Great professor! Scared me at first because I couldn't do those tricky poker hand probability problems, but once the class picks up you get the hang of things (the weekly pop quizzes in discussion, the lack of organization in his notes, his frustration with himself, the easy midterms which mimic practice tests)...and it all comes together at the end of the semester and you look back saying, wow what an awesome, cool, funny elderly man and what a nice easy 400 level course to end senior year! :) Highly recommended! (reviewed by a Bio/Pre-Med Major)
Leonid Koralov STAT400 Anonymous 04/23/2012	I was in the same class as the other Fall 2011 students that posted and yes this guy to put it bluntly, sucks. I received an F in the class. It was my first semester at UMD, and I should have known better that in this school, most professors don't teach. I should have dropped the class rather than risk my gpa for this nonsense.
Leonid Koralov STAT400 Expecting a C Anonymous 12/15/2011	Koralov is by far the worst professor I've had on campus. He spends way too much time going over proofs and half the time he realizes he made a mistake early on which screws up everything you just learned. The examples he gives in class do not relate to what shows up on exams and he'll generally screw up on explaining them more than once so don't write in pen. Actually you're probably better off not writing anything he writes on the board because its most likely wrong. The average on the first test was somewhere in the 40's and he couldn't understand why everyone did so bad. When I went to his office hours to ask about a curve he said there might be a small one, but he was ok with failing the whole class because obviously we didn't study hard enough. The only days I learned something were the two days we had subs. Basically, avoid this man at all costs.
Leonid Koralov STAT400 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/12/2011	Ok heads up guys this man is a nice guy. Office hours are three times a week, however he is not a good professor. His lectures usually involve proving the material being taught then afterwards at max expect one lecture he will go over 2 problems. O and dont get me started on the exams....The first exam the average was a 35 out of 85 second was a lot higher 60/100. So now what happens with the hordes of people who are still in the class they suffer from a higher curve. (in Fall 2011 31% of the class dropped.....) So yea if you like proofs and don't mind learning on your own from the cryptic book by all means take this professor with unreasonable exams.... If you want an easy A... Look somewhere else ....
Abram Kagan STAT400 Expecting a B Anonymous 07/14/2011	This class was like going to prison, sodomy and all. Impossible to learn anything from lectures or notes. Be prepared to study very hard on your own.
John Millson STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 07/11/2011	Dr. Millson is my idea of a college professor. Elderly, funny, extremely intelligent, and a little disorganized. This was one of my favorite classes of the semester. He often uses interesting real world examples to illustrate the concepts. For non-math majors like me,it was very helpful. Exams are fair and there is a curve at the end. Read the chapters and follow his lectures will almost guarantee the A. If you need to take Stat400, his is the class to take. It was definitely a pleasure for me.
Abram Kagan STAT400 Expecting a B chrisgrady 06/22/2011	It's ok? You get it? It makes sense? These are the only questions this guy asks otherwise he is alright.
John Millson STAT400 Expecting a B motariq1991 05/25/2011	So, here is the deal with this professor. He knows his stuff but he is extremely extremely unorganized and makes too many mistakes during lecture, on his webpage and on homework. I honestly don't see why he can't just give out a syllabus and stick to it. He mumbles a lot and makes it difficult for students to understand what he is saying. His hand writing is TERRIBLE. Even though I sat on the front row every single lecture, there were times where I couldn't understand what he was writing. And it seemed like he was only teaching one side of the lecture, the front right. Every important concept that he wanted the class to understand, he would turn to the front right of the lecture and mumbles it away. But, the class isn't difficult at all. The combinations and probability chapter could get a little confusing but statistics chapters are easy as long as you know what you are doing.
John Millson STAT400 Expecting an A Luminaire 05/21/2011	2 exams worth 50 point each. Weekly homework quizzes 50 points total, and a final worth 100 points. With his unnecessary curve, I got an A with ease, while learning on my own. Lectures are too slow paced for me, as I can learn one month of John's material in about an hour of my own study time. Since I'm a math major, STAT400 comes naturally. For non-math majors, it's just high school stat and a little beyond. Whenever he sends exam solutions, wait about 4-5 emails for his "Corrections to Exam X Solution". The textbook is awful, and John complains that no one goes to class, but overall this is the class to take. I would encourage John Millson to repeat Spring 2011. It was a success
John Millson STAT400 Expecting an A fma1 05/14/2011	I would say Millson is a pretty good teacher. I mean, he puts standard "good citizen" problems on the test. If you do your homework and get 100s on the quizzes and know how to do the good citizen problems, you can't fail this class (For goodness sakes, you only have to get a 125/250 to pass the class and get a C!). Good citizen problems are (1) he gives a pdf f(x), find E(X)/V(X)/F(X)/median (2) He gives a pmf for 2 variables, find pmf for X & Y, W = X + Y, say independent or not, find covariance, find correlation coefficient (3) Find (100-alpha)% Confidence Interval for mu (the mean) (4) Proof for two-sided/one-sided confidence Interval He does post his lectures online, and you don't have to take notes, but I recommend taking notes because many times HE WILL DO PROBLEMS FOR YOU. He will tell you how to find a confidence interval, telling you what you're really doing, instead of just plugging into the formula. Also, I recommend going to cramster and doing every single odd problem each week. It will help a lot instead of just doing the ones assigned.
John Millson STAT400 Expecting an A rockinbassman 04/20/2011	I'm not sure what STAT400 is supposed to be like, but Millson makes it VERY simple. If you're a math major or even a math minor, this will be the easiest math class you take in college. It is only a little bit harder than AP Statistics, since you do a few integrals here and there. The book is not very good, but Millson puts his handwritten (soon to be typed) notes online. Between the book, his notes, and the discussions, you don't need to go to lecture. HW quizzes were easy, so far >100% average on them. If you want to be challenged in statistics, take something more like STAT410. Otherwise, take STAT400 with Millson.
Sandra Cerrai STAT400 Expecting an A- Anonymous 12/23/2010	I took this class when she first taught it in Fall 2009 as a freshman. I was also in Math241, which gives me a basis to compare to this class. She was horrible at answering questions, she didn't know the concept of a class curve, and she would spend all of lecture writing indiscernible symbols on the board that were useless theory and proofs of formulas, then on the tests she would have these horribly complex and contrived applications that we had no idea how to do, along with the ridiculous proof questions. However, this being her first semester in America, we broke her in for you guys, demanding that she curve the class, forcing her to hold review sessions during lecture, begging her for extra office hours, and constantly going to her TA's (which were extremely helpful) for help. So, back in my day, this class was a pain in the ass, now for you guys, it should be okay. She had this awesome TA, Ziliang Li, who basically saved my life in this class with his wonderful help during discussions about homework/quiz questions that helped me a lot.
Frances Gulick STAT400 Expecting a B eddie 12/17/2010	Avoid Frances Gulick at all costs!... Lectures are a waste of time; she spends the entire time deriving equations and proving theorems, and rarely ever makes time to fit in an example. You will do all of your learning on your own, which makes the weekly homework assignments and quizzes in discussion significantly more difficult. On top of that, she gives pop quizzes and graded classwork assignments during lecture to make sure people are attending. Maybe all of that is necessary to keep freshmen up to speed in Calc I, but this is a 400 level class, and she definitely doesn't teach it like one. The extra work will only drag you down; take this class with a professor who grades you on your exams, not your attendance. And if you're still not convinced, just compare her average GPA to the other STAT profs. It's a no-brainer.
Sandra Cerrai STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/17/2010	I kind of see what oldmanjess (below) means about the textbook. I wouldn't call it terrible, but it was kind of confusing. But Cerrai did a good job explaining what the confusing parts meant. She is also a very nice person with respect to grading tests, she doesn't take off very many points. As for her accent, she went to high school and college in Italy and because of this she doesn't have the best English vocabulary, but she knows the English she needs to teach STAT400. As for her accent it took me like maybe 2 classes to get used to it then I didn't have any problems after that. She also is pretty funny, which was nice to have during a hour fifteen lecture. She gives 2 midterms and 10 homework assignments with one dropped. (but the homework assignments weren't collected, instead your TA gave you a "quiz" where you just had to redo one of the hw problems without notes) STAT400 itself is a lot of logic in the beginning, and kind of some stressful estimation stuff towards the end, overall not that hard computationally, but somewhat difficult conceptually.
Sandra Cerrai STAT400 Expecting an A oldmanjess 10/13/2010	Dr. Cerrai's method of teaching assumes the students know nothing of the material. She teaches in a clear, logical manner. She also writes big, which helps with note-taking. Some students in my class say they have difficulty with her accent. I don't have that problem. The lectures seemed pretty structured to me: concept->proof->example. STAT400 is in between MATH240 and MATH141 in difficulty. Expect 3-4 hours per week of homework/study. Unfortunately, it is important to attend every lecture, because the book is TERRIBLE! There must be a better book out there, math department!
Frances Gulick STAT400 Anonymous 10/10/2010	I wonder how she's managed to survive this long at Maryland.. When people say she knows her stuff, that is like saying an NBA player knows how to play basketball.. WAKE UP!! Professors HAVE to know what they are teaching.. that's how they make their living off of.. it's HOW they convey the materials and communicate with students that count toward determining whether the professor is good or bad.. And this lady is NOT a good professor.. I regret taking this course with her.. I should have known about this lady beforehand..sigh** but what can I do.. the two things I can do are.. first leave this review here and.. evaluate her at the end of the course.. hoping that the school will do something about it although I highly doubt anything will be done.. As I am writing this I prepare myself to a sleepless night studying hoping that I'd get an A.. although ourumd is very skeptical about her giving A's.. And someone mentioned that she's like an evil..I do not know her personally but seeing her during the lecture tells me she is indeed someone who'd smile and fail you simultaneously :o
Giovanni Forni STAT400 Expecting an A a778999 05/18/2010	What everyone else said. His lectures were awful so I had to rely on my TA to learn the material. Homeworks were pretty easy but do not prepare you for the tests at all. Even though the tests are open book, the book doesn't help at all. I failed my second midterm but still got an A because of the generous curve.
John Millson STAT400 Expecting an A toypajme 05/16/2010	Yes, the class is very easy because of his ridiculous curve and the grading system, but other than that, the class is terrible. He sits in the front of the class (because of a back injury) and reads off his hand written notes that are scanned online. Every few minutes he goes off on tangents. NOTHING is learned in lecture. Nothing, but sometimes he tells you what problems will be on the tests. The book is completely unhelpful and dont be surprised if you never know how to do the homework right away if you do go to lecture. Just pay attention in discussions and hope for the best. Tests are very easy and sometimes identical to practice tests. So yea, it's easy, but he's terrible. But since he's SO easy. He gets a 2.
Sandra Cerrai STAT400 Expecting a C Anonymous 12/01/2009	I completely agree with the other review, who said it perfectly. While she seems like a very nice person and she tried very hard, her teaching style needs major work. About 10-20% of a given lecture was actually new/useful material, where the other 80-90% was her repeating herself again and again. The comment about the lack of organization was a MAJOR problem for me (and I believe it is a problem many UMD math department teachers have). I would recommend someone else if you can, unless you're really good at learning from the book with minimal useful lecture time.
Giovanni Forni STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/19/2009	His lectures are impossible to followw, so you must learn everything from the book. His tests are created to be IMPOSSIBLE! He himself said that a student should be able to only understand half the test. That sentiment was reflected in the average grades (the first midterm average was a ~45, and the second was a 32). The final was do-able. Avoid if possible.
Sandra Cerrai STAT400 Expecting a B Anonymous 11/17/2009	The main problem I had with her was her lectures were too unstructured for me. She writes very large, which is good for reading, but she doesn't really follow a pattern as to where she writes stuff. I would often bring my text book to class so I could at least give my notes some structure. She seems nice though, and occasionally says amusing things. Her tests weren't always what I was expecting, but they weren't horrible either. Overall I would say she's fairly average.
Giovanni Forni STAT400 Anonymous 06/03/2009	Good lecturer: no, a terrible lecturer Smart: may be but definitely not a smart teacher Tests: hard, at least 2 problems not doable Approachable: not really, sometimes didn't show up during his office hours Should I take him: I suggest to do everything possible to AVOID taking any class (esp. STAT400) with him Are lectures helpful: 95% of lectures that I attended were not very helpful, other 5%: don't know. Test avg: Test 1 -> low-mid 50s, Test 2 -> low-mid 30s...I'm not kidding!! Curve: Huge curve, basically if you do avg on test, its a B Other comments: -If you have questions about homework, don't go and ask him. He will do everything but answer your question. -Even though he is a stats professor, he won't give you a grade distribution which is sad
Giovanni Forni STAT400 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 05/23/2009	Honestly, I went to no more than 25% of the lectures. From when I was there, I can say that Forni focused mostly on the theoretical concepts of the class. He showed us the proofs for many concepts in statistics. His lecture was not really organized well and he rarely did example problems. HW is 30% of the grade, which boosts your grade. I learned most of the general concepts by doing the homework and reading the not-so-well-written textbook. I knew the material well enough to do the practice tests that tested a basic understanding of the material. However, HIS TESTS ARE HARD. The problems make you apply the material in ways that you have never seen (not in lecture or in the book). There is a huge curve, because even though I likely got below 50% on both midterms and the final, I still got a B+. Even with the curve, the class is just annoying, because the tests just stress you out and I didn't learn anything that I really couldn't have figured out from AP statistics. I would say AVOID HIM if you can.
Giovanni Forni STAT400 Expecting a B Anonymous 05/22/2009	This man is a genius but a terrible teacher. The exams are open book but insanely difficult. He curves to a B average though which is cool and he is also very approachable and responds to emails fast. Basically, he is terrible teacher but also a fair one.
Giovanni Forni STAT400 Anonymous 05/20/2009	Must have to agree with all poster below. All he does in lectures are proofs. I only went to majority of his lecture before exam 1 then i found out nothing in his lecture resembles on his exam. HW was 30% of grade (grade booster), it was straight from the book. All exams resembles NOTHING from HW or lecture. He even told us to do practice exam from other prof in testbank....totally different. He only had 4 problems on exam 1 & 2. He even stated that the last 2 problems he makes it more difficult to see how we do...so he atleast expect a 50 from ppl Exam 1...the average was around 50+ Exam 2...the average was around 30+ With those averages, he gotta curve...but if you hit the average and do really well on the HW....you should be fine...I manget to get a B with good HW scores but a little below average test score... But if you really want to learn...he is not the prof for you...
Giovanni Forni STAT400 derubermenche 04/22/2009	He is a terrible professor, he reads the book and does proofs the entire lecture. He assigns a lot of homework and it's 30% of your grade. The tests look nothing like the homework, nor do they resemble anything else he did during class. The average grade for the first test was a 55 and the average grade for the second wont be higher than a 45. DO NOT TAKE STAT400 WITH HIM.
Giovanni Forni STAT400 Expecting a B Anonymous 04/21/2009	Forni teaches stat400 in a very unique way. lectures are very confusing, and most people do not attend. the weekly homework from the book was pretty straight forward, but his tests are completely different and there are not any good tools to study for them. however, there is a large curve as a 50% on the 1st test was close to a B. it is not hard to pass the class, but the material is sometimes overwhelming. do not recommend for people who really want to know the material
John Millson STAT400 Expecting an A dm 12/30/2008	I think Millson is a great professor. He really wants his students to do well, and this is quite obvious in the way he teaches and communicates with his students. STAT400 is a pretty hard class, but Millson made it really easy.All his tests were open note, and he graded fairly.He wasn't keeping too well this semester, so I doubt he's going to teach this class again; but if he is, sign up for it!
John Millson STAT400 Expecting an A astersh 12/29/2008	Easy course to get an A in. You probably don't have to go to class, but he's funny, so I do. Discussions = useless. My TA was simply abrasive. When she taught lecture (Millson had a few doctor's appts.), most people would just leave.
Abram Kagan STAT400 Expecting a B pluralfacade 12/08/2008	It was very hard to learn from Professor Kagan's lectures. Once in while I would pick something up but it was pretty hard to do so without some pre-reading. Eventually I would just skip class and read the textbook to learn whatever material was needed to do the homeworks, which themselves were extremely excessively challenging and often time-consuming.
John Millson STAT400 Expecting an A pluralfacade 12/08/2008	The easiest A you could possibly get. Exams are open-note and generally mimic homework problems. He also gives a very handsome curve and is actually a decent instructor as well.
John Millson STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 08/05/2008	Very Easy A. He is also a great professor, makes the semi-tough topics very very easy. If you want an easy A, take this. Curves so a 50% overall in the class is a C. I only went to discussions to turn my hw in, but stayed the whole time before an exam. His practice exams are very similar to the real test.
Abram Kagan STAT400 Expecting an A ecdysis7 06/09/2008	Not a great professor. He did not post the proper edition of our textbook online and so many students (such as myself) bought the wrong textbook. I only figured this out after the first homework, which I failed because the problems did not match in the two textbooks... when i asked prof kagan if it were possible to drop a homework since it was his fault that some of us had failed in the first place he replied: "one or two percent of your grade is no great tragedy." I guess it wasn't in my case but I hope it didn't affect someone else. As for the class itself, the tests are really, really easy and if you're the type of person who can sit through a boring lecture you should do fine on the homework, which is worth a whopping 35% of your grade.
Abram Kagan STAT400 Expecting an A TVanBlar 05/14/2008	Really smart and funny guy. A little hard to understand because of his accent. Goes through many examples and lets you know what's coming up on tests. Lecture is difficult to follow but with a decent TA and using the textbook it is more than manageable.
John Millson STAT400 bbygyrl123 12/22/2007	EASY A!!!!! Just make sure you go to discussions and do the homework and ur golden. And a big hint is to check out the exam questions on the math test bank site! You see em again!
John Millson STAT400 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/20/2007	Great professor! Go to discussion sections, lecture optional. Great curve in the class.
John Millson STAT400 Expecting an A intrusion 12/03/2007	Very good professor. He teaches content effectively, and doesn't assume that you are smarter than you are (so sometimes it can seem like he is teaching to a lower level). His tests are open book, open note, and the curve on the class seems substantial (125/250 in class total is bottom of C). Highly recommended, especially for non Math/Stat majors who need the course for a requirement but aren't incredibly interested in the theory behind stuff and intense proofs and whatnot.