| Information | Review |
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Jian Lun Xu
STAT420 Expecting a C Anonymous 05/23/2025 |
This was the hardest course I have taken at UMD. Prof. Xu is very knowledgeable about statistics, seems to genuinely care about the students' learning outcomes, and had some cool stories he occasionally mentioned. I found lectures to be somewhat dry and hard to follow, and homework assignments challenging and time intensive. That said, the exams were quite fair and similar to past exams available on the Testbank. I finished with a C but if you actually put in the time to study for this course it's totally possible to finish with a solid grade. |
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Jian Lun Xu
STAT420 Expecting an A+ ceremonialgradematcha 04/30/2024 |
class was very difficult, even more so than MATH410. consider taking multiple proof-based courses before taking STAT420 with this professor. that being said, if you have the required mathematical background he expects you will learn a lot. homework and exams are difficult, and it is recommended that this class be the only difficult class you take in a semester. i got a lot out of this class, and it greatly improved my problem-solving ability. professor is responsive through email, and does a good job of explaining things clearly when approached 1-on-1. |
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Jian Lun Xu
STAT420 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/19/2023 |
This course is rough. You are expected to know the ins and outs of stat410 very well but Dr Xu reviews stat410 material for the first 3-4 weeks. After that, stat420 actually begins. I felt that his teaching was low-key the bare minimum. He would go over the basics of a certain concept (primarily focused on definitions) but then on homeworks and exams would expect you to apply those concepts in very peculiar ways. He also does not host office hours due to being a part time professor but is very responsive to emails and willing to help before or after class. Homeworks were a combination of very lengthy and/or very difficult. For Fall 2023, we only had 1 midterm and he didn't provide a practice test but for the final exam the math test bank was a great resource to use. He also sometimes says during class what types of problems will be on the exams (ex: there will be a problem on maximum likelihood estimators or something like that). Exam questions might also be pulled from the homework (word for word). I'd say the most stressful part of this class (at least for when I took it) was that 76% of the grade was determined by the midterm (33%) and final (43%). This, combined with the difficult homeworks, dr xus teaching style, and unintuitive nature of stat420 material, makes this class pretty difficult. That being said, dr xu has been teaching this course for a loooong time, so if you go out of your way to ask him for help he will definitely make things clearer for you. tldr: this course is hard asf and you should only take it if you can REALLY put in the work. |
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Jian Lun Xu
STAT420 Anonymous 05/20/2023 |
Lecture are kind of hard to follow, but he clearly emphasizes what he wants you to know for exams. Exams are very similar to the ones from past years. Responds to emails very quickly and tries to help as much as possible. |
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Jian Lun Xu
STAT410 Expecting an A Anonymous 06/20/2019 |
Excellent lecturer and fair exams; they are similar to the ones from previous years. Dr. Xu only works at UMD part-time. He works at NIH as a researcher. He has a lot of interesting stories to tell as well. He does not have a strong accent. |
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Jian Lun Xu
STAT410 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/24/2018 |
Excellent lectures, very good at explaining concepts (much more than the garbage book that the math department decides to use for STAT410), and gives a strong, theoretical foundation for probability theory, despite his dry lectures. His homework in general was not incredibly difficult, and often pulls test questions from previous homework assignments and examples done in class, so it is not hard to excel if one studies properly. I would say that the class he taught was incredibly dead since it was held from 5-6:15 p.m TuTh, which made it dreadful to go to, which was only made worse with dry lectures. Ideally, he would be perfect at an earlier time, but since he is an Adjunct professor, this is unlikely. Another problem is that he can't hold office house besides ~30 minutes before/after class, but he is excellent about responding to email. I would recommend him to anyone taking STAT410, but to be wary of the options. I think I got more out of this class by taking it with him than people like Friedlin, Dolgopyat, and Kagan, but I feel like better options might exist elsewhere. |
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Jian Lun Xu
STAT410 Expecting an A+ dfarias 03/02/2013 |
To start out, the person bellow is incorrect about attendance not being required. It is very important that you go to his lectures and take good notes on everything he writes down. He explains the concepts quite well, but his accent can really make it hard to understand sometimes. If it weren't for that, I'd probably give him a 5. Dr. Xu is certainly worth it over Cerrai or some other professors that usually teach it. He goes more in depth and teaches the class in a very structured manner, which I appreciate. The exams should theoretically be easy if you consider he gives 2-3 problems from homework or class, and often the other 2 are problems from the book that he did not assign (look in the high end). If you pay attention to what he says will be on the test, and look at his review sheets, you should be able to do very well on the tests. In the end, you will probably learn considerably more than the other professors who teach this class. |
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Jian Lun Xu
STAT410 Anonymous 11/29/2012 |
The worst thing about Prof. Xu's teaching is that he spends most of the lectures simply going over examples from the textbook, which I found completely unhelpful. By the same token, the best thing about this course is that attendance is not required. If attendance had been required, I might have dropped this course simply due to boredom. Professor Xu is a competent teacher however, though the lectures aren't imaginative or exciting, nor do they provide any kind of deeper perspective on Statistics as a discipline. I did appreciate his anecdotes, though he does try to set a moralistic tone (in his characteristically Chinese way) which may be (perhaps intentionally) intimidating to some students. He does care though, which is very much appreciated. |
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Jian Lun Xu
STAT420 Expecting a B+ ProBoggler 08/01/2008 |
Professor Xu definitely knew his stuff and was really clear in his explanations. He taught very methodically, writing down definitions, explaining them, giving an example, and repeating. His teaching was so clear there really was no need for questions. His tests were fair, the homework was definitely challenging. The only complaint I would have is that he never held office hours, which would make asking questions, if you had them, pretty tough. If you are into a more engaging class this professor is probably not for you, but he is a good teacher and I would take a class with him again. |