Reviews for STAT440

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Natalia Tchetcherina STAT440 Expecting an A Anonymous 01/06/2024	While Natalia seems like a kind person, it was hard to understand her in lectures, and it seems like most people (myself included) stopped attending within the first few weeks because of this. Additionally, this course has an excessive workload in my opinion. There were homework assignments and report submissions due almost every week and classwork assignments due almost every day (and the classwork is really just extra homework, since it's not done in class). There were times when a homework assignment, report submission, and classwork assignment would all be due on the same day. Assignments also seemed needlessly lengthy. I don't think a reduced workload would have hindered our understanding of the material. Another major issue was grading. Homework and classwork assignments were graded relatively fairly, but the grading on reports seemed very arbitrary. Natalia would leave comments on reports and assign a grade, but there was no indication of how many points were lost for what. A simple mistake in one part that caused other parts to be incorrect could result in her giving your group a 60% on a report. She did allow resubmissions, with a 5 point penalty each time. However, even this system was flawed: after fixing all the issues she pointed out and resubmitting, she would point out additional issues that were not mentioned previously. Because of this, we had to resubmit some reports 3, 4, or even 5 times. Finally, some assignments just weren't structured well. Instructions were often unclear, leaving us to figure things out on our own. Also, most of the homework and classwork assignments required using R, but Natalia would just put brief instructions in the assignment. I know other professors in the STAT department provide R Markdown notebooks for assignments, with the instructions and starter code included. This would be much better in my opinion, so we could just focus on writing the R code necessary to solve the problems and writing our analysis. Overall, while Natalia seems like a kind person, the confusing lectures, excessive workload, arbitrary grading, and assignment issues made the class somewhat dysfunctional. While it is still possible to do well in the class despite these issues, I would recommend taking the class with any other professor if possible.
Natalia Tchetcherina STAT440 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/12/2023	While Natalia seems like a kind person, it was hard to understand her in lectures, and it seems like most people (myself included) stopped attending within the first few weeks because of this. Additionally, this course has an excessive workload in my opinion. There were homework assignments and report submissions due almost every week and classwork assignments due almost every day (and the classwork is really just extra homework, since it's not done in class). There were times when a homework assignment, report submission, and classwork assignment would all be due on the same day. Assignments also seemed needlessly lengthy. I don't think a reduced workload would have hindered our understanding of the material. Another major issue was grading. Homework and classwork assignments were graded relatively fairly, but the grading on reports seemed very arbitrary. Natalia would leave comments on reports and assign a grade, but there was no indication of how many points were lost for what. A simple mistake in one part that caused other parts to be incorrect could result in her giving your group a 60% on a report. She did allow resubmissions, with a 5 point penalty each time. However, even this system was flawed: after fixing all the issues she pointed out and resubmitting, she would point out additional issues that were not mentioned previously. Because of this, we had to resubmit some reports 3, 4, or even 5 times. Finally, some assignments just weren't structured well. Instructions were often unclear, leaving us to figure things out on our own. Also, most of the homework and classwork assignments required using R, but Natalia would just put brief instructions in the assignment. I know other professors in the STAT department provide R Markdown notebooks for assignments, with the instructions and starter code included. This would be much better in my opinion, so we could just focus on writing the R code necessary to solve the problems and writing our analysis. Overall, while Natalia seems like a kind person, the confusing lectures, excessive workload, arbitrary grading, and assignment issues made the class somewhat dysfunctional. While it is still possible to do well in the class despite these issues, I would recommend taking the class with any other professor if possible.
Natalia Tchetcherina STAT440 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/11/2023	This class requires a semester long group project and if you are stuck with bad group members it is not going to be an enjoyable class. She also implements "class assignments" that are due at 11:59PM the same day she assigns it to make sure people are coming to class. Most of the time it is annoying, but it isn't too hard if you go to class. She often reads from the slides and does not go over examples very often (which I think is pretty important to be able to apply the content). Overall, it isn't a hard class, but it is a lot of busy work and if you don't like group work I wouldn't recommend. There are no exams and she allows you to resubmit the group assignments for a higher grade. She is a nice professor and if you ask questions she will answer. I think the class is a lot of busy work and it shouldn't be too bad if you have a good group for the project
Takumi Saegusa STAT440 Expecting an A Anonymous 07/23/2023	While his lectures were boring enough to have most of the class ditch immediately after the first couple of lectures, I think it is worth it to still go as he reviews material that will be on the 1 midterm and final. The midterm and final were comprised of homework questions and examples listed out on the slides, so as long as you studied those and wrote them down on your cheat sheet, you could get a high grade on them. Basically as long as you do your homework and go to the boring lectures, you will get a good grade in the class. The midterm was also curved an entire letter grade for those who got way below average, which helped out a lot. The final project was relatively easy as long as you did the homeworks properly as it was combining all the code from the homeworks. You don't really learn much from this class, but it wasn't hard to get a good grade in it.
Takumi Saegusa STAT440 Expecting a D+ Anonymous 05/20/2023	His lectures are so boring that people stopped going to class. He graded the final project so brutally and so close to the final exam date that everyone’s grades tanked. He stopped responding to emails and doesn’t care about students concerns. He likes the power he has over his students as a professor. He didn’t curve the final exam or the final project. Highly disappointed and I regret taking him.
Paul Smith STAT440 Expecting a B+ Anonymous 12/12/2022	Grades are not updated regularly. Lecture is not worth going to as he often spends lots of time on proofs not needed for homeworks or exams. Strange class, feels very outdated.
Natalia Tchetcherina STAT440 Anonymous 11/15/2022	Assigns a lot of busy work (but it's usually pretty simple). There were no exams in this class, but there was a semester long group project. She mostly taught stuff off the slides while deriving some aspects or going over examples on the board. She has a heavy accent.
Natalia Tchetcherina STAT440 Expecting an A+ Anonymous 12/19/2021	She is a really sweet person and makes Stat440 very easy (honestly too easy). There were no exams, but weekly homeworks, "concept checks", and a semester long project. But she lets you resubmit your reports for a better grade. Really great format for the course and a great semester with her.
Natalia Tchetcherina STAT440 Anonymous 01/12/2021	Class consisted (online format) of daily assignments, weekly homeworks, and a very long class project that she supports you with. Concepts are not too hard, she teaches them well. Very friendly and cares about her students. Very happy I took this class.
Partha Lahiri STAT440 Expecting a B Anonymous 11/14/2019	Partha Lahiri believes in formulas and nothing else. You will spend your time in lecture writing down at a minimum 50 formulas without a single example to demonstrate them. His deck of slides have no explanations and information that cannot be found anywhere else. He uses different syntax on the board and slides. Group project with no instructions.
Natalia Tchetcherina STAT440 Expecting an A Anonymous 01/01/2018	The exam and final were fair. She taught by going over slides she created and posted on elms and working examples on the board (not posted anywhere else). She was a good teacher overall and I found going to lecture very useful. Homework is tedious, but not very difficult. She has a very strong accent, but I had no difficulty understanding her after the 3rd lecture. The final project was fun, but very long. Interesting class and good professor.