Reviews for STAT430

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Christine Nickel STAT430 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/21/2023	She is very good at teaching and her slides do a pretty good job of covering the materials. I felt the homework was a bit tedious, but more so because it's tedious to show your work from graphs, etc. from SAS. If I recall correctly, the two lowest homework and the two lowest classwork got dropped. There were extra credit opportunities for attending class and submitting work early. The expectations were clear. If I were to nit-pick at anything, I felt that the exams were weighted a lot more than they should have (2 exams, 30% for each). This meant if you messed up on one of them, it could be difficult to recover. That being said, she had review sessions that more or less hinted at what was going to be on the exam. Also, if you pay attention in class, you'll do fine. Moreover, the other aspects of the class (Classwork, Homework, Final Project) are pretty much free points if you do the work.
Tong Qi STAT430 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/20/2023	Easy A
Hatice Sahinoglu STAT430 Anonymous 12/17/2023	I don't think she's terrible, but there are definitely some improvements that she can make. I'll start off with the positives. she's a very nice person and wants the students in her class to get an A. She will do homework problems in class and her grading is not so harsh. In terms of negatives, I think she can be disorganized and does not always post solutions to homework or the written notes. Her explanations for concepts are nothing crazy, but they get the job done i guess. However, I do think her homeworks are great review for tests, since the tests are just like the hw. Overall, if u put some effort into the class, you will be fine.
Susan Mazzullo STAT430 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 07/09/2023	Take this class if you want an A that is easier then breathing. All you have to do is come to class and the work that she gives out is so repetitive the process of everything will stick to your head like muscle memory. Every assignment is so easy, so if you put in the work, it literally translates to the quizzes and tests. There is only 1 midterm and a final and they are so easy. I straight up got a question wrong on my midterm and she said did you understand what you got wrong and gave me 6/10 points back. This professor clearly cares about teaching students rather then grading. One of the top stat professors in UMD for sure.
Susan Mazzullo STAT430 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 07/03/2023	Makes this class super easy, all the answers are on her class notes and homework. The classwork and homework that you do just builds muscle memory for you to instantly do well on a midterm or final. Free a
Tong Qi STAT430 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/18/2023	Great professor! She's very resourceful and makes the class easy while also learning stuff. Would take again.
Timothy Pilachowski STAT430 Expecting an A Anonymous 05/08/2023	The class is easy, so you can do well, but he is not a good professor. Nothing was graded the first 7-8 weeks of the semester. Then there was a mistake on the Canvas exam where 2 of the questions he misspelled the correct answer, and instead of just changing the correct answer, he made each person go individually to office hours and would change just their score then.
Timothy Pilachowski STAT430 Expecting an A Anonymous 01/11/2023	Took him for STAT430. While this professor does understand the material very well, lectures were very boring. There were a lot of assignments, especially online assessments which were assigned and were expected to be completed the same day, which is unreasonable. Many assignment instructions are hard to understand and decipher, making assignments harder than they needed to be. He doesn’t really answer any questions and can be quite condescending.
Hatice Sahinoglu STAT430 Anonymous 01/10/2023	She is nice but is not the best professor in terms of teaching. Her lectures are boring. You will probably have to learn the material on your own. Her exams are sometimes on SAS and sometimes completely on paper. She releases homework on Friday morning and makes it due Saturday night. She does not give hw extension. The class itself is easy but due to the disorganized lectures, you might find yourself confused. Make friends and work on the projects together. Technically, the hw should not take more than 2 hours. But if you don't put some effort into learning on your own you might find yourself struggling a bit in the beginning. She only helps with hw during the class or in office hours. She does not respond to hw questions via email. There is also a group project at the end where you have to prepare a powerpoint and present to the class. The one pro about her is that she is a generous grader.
Timothy Pilachowski STAT430 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/13/2022	This is for the Spring 2022 Semester despite the review date posted. Pros: Online Exams, Posts all slides, He doesn't believe in +/-, so it's A from 90-100, B, C, etc. , Cons: Online assignments due every week and homework, Gives a sample review guide for exams but no answer key (also will not go over the guide unless you ask him for the answer) When you ask a question about the content or don't know, he's the type of professor to respond with, "What do you think the answer is?" so if that makes you anxious, avoid him. He's a bit condescending when clarifying concepts as well. If you ask for clarifications for online assignments/projects, he responds with "read the directions." and that's it. The class itself isn't hard so I was able to get an A but I did not like the style of the professor.
Hatice Sahinoglu STAT430 Anonymous 10/14/2022	Absolutely horrendous professor. STAT430 is supposed to be an easy A and straightforward, but her lectures are convoluted, homework assignments are poorly written and vague. If you try to clarify questions, she will simply say just read the question. Had her because the original professor got replaced by her. Avoid her at all costs.
Christine Nickel STAT430 Anonymous 05/20/2022	STAT430 provides students with a background of statistics and coding in SAS. Nickel does a great job in class explaining the concepts and providing coding examples in class. The coding examples and very similar to the ones performed during the homework. The in-class assignments are mandatory and provide more examples and lets you also practice your coding skills. Make sure to review the concepts thoroughly for the exams as they test on a lot of material discussed in class. For the final project it is time consuming but not too difficult if you have payed attention in class.
Benjamin Kedem STAT430 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/23/2021	I took this class in Fall 2021 Pros: + Genuinely nice guy, really wants you to do your best. For example, on the final he will tell you exactly what each question will be on + Gives extra credit for participation + You can pretty easily convince him to push back some deadlines Cons: - Speeds through SAS examples in class, you essentially need to learn SAS on your own. All in all focuses way more on statistical theory rather than SAS code, and the class is worse off for it. The class becomes much harder than it needs to be - The class has no sense of organization. Kedem may go over a concept for the whole class period and then go "oh don't worry about that I'll never ask about that" at the end. It's unclear how important each concept is - There is no online presence for the class. No ELMS page, no gradescope, nothing. This means the only way to know what is on each HW assignment is to ask Kedem, but if you forget, good luck. Additionally, HW assignments had to be handed in MANUALLY, ON PAPER. This was EXTREMELY annoying to most of us who did not have a consistent printing situation - There is no consistency as to when HW assignments are due. Some are due in 2 weeks, others in 2 days, you never really know - He is not the best lecturer, a lot of the time it's very unclear what he's going over
Christine Nickel STAT430 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/21/2021	Very clear expectations for the class. Homeworks and exams are a reasonable difficulty. Everything you need to know is posted in slides.
Christine Nickel STAT430 Anonymous 12/17/2021	One of the best professors in the department. She makes her expectations for her class very clear and the lecture materials are thorough. Homework assignments and exams are very fair, and the final project is quite enjoyable. If you put in the work, you shouldn't get less than an A. Highly recommend for this class.
Susan Mazzullo STAT430 Expecting an A Anonymous 07/16/2021	I loved Susan's STAT430 class. Super nice, accommodating, and really easy, with extra credit. I learned a lot too! Absolutely take her if you can.
Susan Mazzullo STAT430 Anonymous 07/13/2021	I mean, I'm not even sure that anyone needs to review her anymore; absolutely phenomenal teacher and person. You almost have to try to get less than a B in her class. Not only is she a great grader but you'll actually learn a lot from her and she's a sweetheart.
Christine Nickel STAT430 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 04/06/2021	Great course and an easy A if you have any type of programming experience. Still shouldn't be hard if you don't have any coding knowledge either. She gives weekly homework and in-class assignments, both are easy variations of the examples in her slides. Fair exams too! Overall, a super kind prof that cares about her students.
Christine Nickel STAT430 Expecting an A Anonymous 04/01/2021	Worst teacher I have ever met in my college life. Arrogant and selfish. Please take Susan’s 430 if possible.
Ayushi Saxena STAT430 Expecting an A Anonymous 10/16/2020	Ayushi was an awesome TA. She is so smart and helpful with questions. I really like learning statistics from her so I would recommend taking her class.
Susan Mazzullo STAT430 Expecting an A assuminglion99 12/19/2019	She is very kind and understanding, classwork is pretty chill for the most part...she now uses Zoom to conduct online lectures on Friday (as a way to practice coding in SAS), and uses Mondays and most Wednesdays (some Wednesdays we also have online lectures) for lectures. Her lectures are pretty dry though and the slides are very long, but she posts them on ELMS, so it has all the info you need.
Emily Francis STAT430 Anonymous 05/04/2019	Terrible professor. Unorganized slides and consistently retroactively changes assignment questions after they have already been posted. Material is easy but the class is incredibly frustrating.
Benjamin Kedem STAT430 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/13/2016	Prof. Kedem made it extremely unclear what was expected from this course. The syllabus was barely a page, with much of it stating why the course was "so important." The professor was extremely uncommunicative outside of class, never alerting us about upcoming assignments through email or Canvas. He was very loose with deadlines, which was helpful if you missed class and didn't know when something was assigned, but it added to the lack of structure in the course. His advice for preparing for the first midterm was "look at the notes," which is tough for a course that is some part mathematical statistics and some part statistical programming in SAS and coding language, and the exams are unknown what part of each will comprise them (plus the midterm is worth 35% of the course grade). His instructions for our statistical project was "look at the syllabus," which had a 3-line description of the entire project, including only one line on the write-up portion, which essentially stated "summarize what you researched." I was then docked many points for not being descriptive enough or providing a long enough write-up, when there was minimal description for what I had to do. Thus, Prof. Kedem is a nice guy, and he tries to relate to the students, but his courses is extremely disorganized, and it thus hindered my learning experience.
Benjamin Kedem STAT430 Anonymous 12/16/2011	He is very smart however He does not know how to teach undergraduate classes. He write on the board all these formula and proofs that most of the class no one understands. He usually tells you about what is on the midterm however it is very difficult to review the midterm since a lot of materials are not in the book. The final project is very easy but you need to find a interesting topic. He allows you to hand in late home works. Overall his class is not difficult to get a B in because he is very generous about grading and if you get an A in his final, he gives you an A in the class.
Benjamin Kedem STAT430 Expecting an A keyoung 05/24/2011	I took this class to learn SAS and only feel that I am familiar with it. I don't feel like I know its "in's and out's." However, I do feel this class was an easy A. He gives quizzes and HW that prepare for the exam. Take notes directly on the handouts and always print and bring them to class. Don't BS the project but you don't need to put that much effort. Be creative because he likes that. A lot of people did projects on grades and Heart rates which got boring after a while.
Benjamin Kedem STAT430 ana9701 05/19/2011	SAS is a very good software to know, but he is a wierd teacher. I don't recommend his class.
Benjamin Kedem STAT430 Anonymous 05/18/2011	You really don't get much about SAS in his class. He is funny guy and you don't feel bored at his class, but actually he doesn't teach you SAS. Instead he takes time of class with many complicated and big formulas that it's not really necessary to know to be a SAS professional. He calls it "wisdom behind SAS", but actually he is teaching what he really knows (statistics theory), not SAS! and he gives questions about them at final exam, although he says that he doesn't ask about them. I agree with other people that he really doesn't answer you question about software.
Benjamin Kedem STAT430 Anonymous 12/12/2009	Perhaps it's just been an off semester, but Kedem was neither approachable nor encouraging. On the first day of class, he handed out the syllabus with his e-mail and phone number, then told us not to call or e-mail. He also listed a half-hour long scheduled office hour, which he said no one ever goes to. When questions were asked in class, they were often ignored, misunderstood, or magically hand-waved away. Many times, the question of "Can SAS do (such and such)?" was met with "I don't know." On the plus side, Kedem is fairly humorous and entertaining. He is also very intelligent. His tangents about his research, though generally unproductive to learning SAS and well beyond the scope of the class, were interesting. If you want to learn about statistics theory, Kedem is your guy. Furthermore, (as someone else said) Kedem accepts late homework, which is nice. (Be warned, however, that if this happens repeatedly by a majority of the class, he will attempt to retract this privilege.)
Benjamin Kedem STAT430 Expecting an A ecdysis7 03/08/2009	Kedem is a really funny guy, and you actually learn a lot of stuff in his class. It also isn't difficult to get an A in the class, as long you put in the work. He can get a little carried away with proofs and his research sometimes, but hey, what math professor doesn't? Take 430 with Kedem.
Benjamin Kedem STAT430 Expecting an A konthelion 06/05/2008	Teaching: He mixes his lectures with both SAS programming and statistics and overall does a good job teaching the material. He is knowledgeable in the content topics and always encourages students to ask questions. He often go on tangents or talk about his research, but he always relate it to statistics. Personality: Professor Kedem is pretty funny and approachable. Grading: Grading is not a big deal and accepts late homework/projects(even those that are weeks late). He doesn't treat you like kindergartens. If for example, you got a C on your midterm, and you received an A on your final. He'll give you an A.