Shixin Zheng | PlanetTerp

Information	Review
Shixin Zheng STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/18/2025	It was his first time teaching STAT400, and he didn't know how to format exams, curves, and lectures. He's a nice guy, though his lectures are pretty boring, and most people ended up skipping the lectures towards the end of the semester. The quizzes are simple(depending on the TA). I ended up skipping most of the lectures and going over the practice questions that he gave us, and did decently on most of the exams(around a 85% average). He also gives bonus points on homework towards the end of the semester, and some quizzes get dropped. The final exam was just a copy of the practice exam he gave us; some of the questions were exactly like the practice exam questions. From what I saw, most of the class felt good about the final and thought it was the easiest exam they had taken. I'm sure in the future his class will be more organized, and the lectures will be more thorough. Overall, I would take him again because(at least for me) it was an easy A.
Shixin Zheng STAT400 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/18/2025	At first, the course was unreasonably difficult and very disorganized. I think this professor is just new to teaching, so it was a rocky start. Near the end of the course, he improved significantly in his lectures and on top of that, the last few exams were more representitive of the material covered. The homework used to be insanely difficult too, but near the end it was starting to become more managable. I think there is still room for improvement, but throughout the semester he actively worked to improve the course based on feedback.
Shixin Zheng STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/18/2025	I'm writing this review just after the final exam for Stat 400. It being his first time teaching at the university, Zheng started the year off rough, with confusing lectures, he was initially bad at explaining topics and gave no insight into what was going to be on each exam. After students expressed their complaints, he really cleaned up his act. For exam #2, he told us what type of problems would be on the exam and gave out practice problems similar to ones on the exam. He also began to give out extra credit points on the homework, which made it easier to recover points. For the final, we were allowed a double sided a4 sheet of notes, and he gave us in-depth practice problems that were very relevant to the problems on the final. I'm giving him a 4 star review because he really turned his teaching style around and doesn't deserve many of the 1 star reviews he was given by students early in the semester, when he was still acclimating to being a teacher for the first time. He also responds quickly to emails and is generally a pretty funny guy in lecture. Please don't shy away from taking his class because of the people who gave him low ratings early in the semester who were upset by their exam 1 results.
Shixin Zheng STAT400 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/13/2025	This will be an overall holistic review of his teaching through his first semester and some lore n stuff, this is gonna be fun to write. Week 1 - 3: (Intro stuff, basic set theory, combinations, counting (discrete math stuff), geometric probability, sigma algebra (wtf is that), conditional probability, and some Bayes theorem) Kinda bad, didn't have good examples through class, but wasn't the worst professor ever, started to record lectures with Notability, used the microphone (so ppl in the back of the room can hear him), and has PDFs of the notes after 2-3 weeks. Pretty rough start, but we got there. Week 4 - 6 (First Exam on Week 6) (More Bayes, Random Variables, pmf + cdf for discrete RV's, variance, binomial, geometric, and hypergeometric) Up to this point was decent, I learnt way more through the textbook and Khan Academy and videos, so yeah, also this is when I stopped going to class for a bit (all the career fair stuff was happening n shit) (The practice problems for exam 1 was basically just a random document with 50 easy questions shoved in right the Monday before the exam, just went through what we learnt up to the point) Week 7 - 10 (Fall break + negative binomial, poisson, continuous RVs, pdf, cdf, expected values, and variance. Normal + standard normal distributions, transformation of RV, exponential + gamma + weibull + log normal + gamma distribution) This week we had to go to the hotel cuz idk wtf the be doing in the Armory. This is when he turned around and became the GOAT, went to his office hours a lot between exam 1 and 2 to ask for him to help us a bit with either doing practice problems, bonus points, practice, or (Telling us exactly what type of questions would be). He said he'll think about it. We also signed a petition to ask for like either it was like bonus points or smt or like a review. And he was like (damn these kids lmao, but he did help us tho). The Tuesday right before exam 2, he said, "You have 5 questions. These are the topics to study up on, kiddos." It definitely helped me, which was nice. There was like 1 problem on negative hypergeometric (we didn't learn it, but we had to try and derive it; most ppl got 13/20 on it was super lenient on grading). Also, week 10, he started to do bonus points on the HW yeaaaa!!! Week (11 - 13): (Joint RV, Joint pdf, marginal pdf, conditional pdf, expected values, covariance and correlation, some intro statistic stuff, point estimation, methods of point estimation (Method of Moments) He started to do curves this week (thank the heavens). Other than that, this week was pretty chill. The examples were at least starting to get better, and he kinda explained like why they mattered and what it kinda means in the bigger picture. We also had the opportunity for a 2.5% grade bonus in class on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving Break. (Curve method linear transformation with the average score and max score if avg less than 83, curve up) Exam 1 Cuve = new score = 0.708 x old score + 29.17 Exam 2 Curve = new score = 0.7831 x old score + 21.69 Final Exam Curve (Maybe if we get a lower than 83% class average) Week (14 - 15) (Hypothesis testing, linear regression, MLE estimator) Slower week, was nothing crazy, we got the practice for the final 2 weeks before the final Sunday at 12:34 am, I also emailed him at 3:00 pm Sunday and said he would give it after he got home, my ass was waiting for him to post it. TAs kinda did the funny with the quizzes, and the professor had to fix their problems with not creating the same quizzes n shit, but yea We'll see for the final exam and if any new things happen, but he said that he would make the final exam easier and only 8 problems, so it should be good (I hope) Exam 1 Stats 76 avg and the highest grade was 100 Exam 2 Stats 78.29 avg and the highest grade was 100 So, not the worst and definitely got better, I guess if you can self-teach yourself first, then read his lecture recording/notes after you understand the topic, then you can ask some questions and maybe pick out some more things better in the lecture. I think he's pretty chill and yeah :thumbs_up: Hopes this helps anyone for Spring 2025 or any future semesters of STAT400 he teaches, and I hope he continues to enjoy teaching and being nice to his students Don't wanna glaze him or hate on him too much, but I think a 3 or 4 is a good rating for him.
Shixin Zheng STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/13/2025	Some things to note about the other reviews for this class, most of them were made after the first midterm. which was quite difficult and had a pretty low average. After some discussing, Professor Zheng agreed to add a curve to all the exams and the final and it was a pretty nice curve too. He also made exam 2 much easier than exam 1 and gave much better practice material, so most of these reviews are complaining about an un-curved, difficult, ill-prepared exam you won't get. About the class itself, the homework is quite difficult, much much harder than the exams or anything else you will see in class except a few examples. Professor Zheng gives out a lot of bonus points on the homework however, which makes getting a 100% in the homework category quite easy. There are weekly quizzes in discussion written by the TA's, but these are very easy compared to everything else. The review guides are pretty comprehensive and covered everything on exam 2. We did not finish all the content in the class (didn't make it to one topic) but covered almost everything so you'll still learn. I also think this class should definitely have MATH240 as a prereq, but the professor nerfed all the joint-pdf questions so knowledge from that class isn't required. Overall, STAT400 is a difficult class but Professor Zheng did a good job (in the second half of the semester) of teaching and preparing you for the exams. Take most of the reviews before the middle of November or with a W with a grain of salt, as these are from before the curve and massive improvement in Professor Zheng's teaching and preparation material.
Shixin Zheng STAT400 Expecting a B Anonymous 12/10/2025	Responded well to criticism and made changes in the middle of the semester to accommodate for his students. For example, the homework at the beginning of the semester was very hard compared to what he makes now. The homework is much more relevant to what we are doing in class, and he created bonus questions for those of us who want a bump to our grade. Another example is how he helped us prepare for midterm 2. Although he released the practice questions a little late, they were very helpful for what we would see on the test. I went from a <50% midterm 1 grade, to just barely a 90% on midterm 2. Also, he curved exams that had an average below 83 generously. To everyone reading all of his reviews and preparing for the worst, I promise you its not that bad at all. Some people are just coping such as the review below mines.
Shixin Zheng STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 12/04/2025	Not as bad as the other reviews say at all, was a little bit rough at first but he improved as a lecturer throughout the course. Also listened to student feedback, helped us prepare better for midterm 2, eventually curved Midterms 1 and 2, and added bonus points on homework. Nice guy, sometimes a little confusing examples but provided more relevant and easy to understand examples. His first time teaching and he definitely got better throughout, 1 star rating is 100% undeserved. Also does have fire fits every class.
Shixin Zheng STAT400 Expecting a W Anonymous 12/02/2025	As stated below, this man should be teaching a fashion class. THET465 would be a better fit for his teaching. He has very nice outfits but is not an effective teacher. Homework is too difficult and the exams don't match the content taught in class.
Shixin Zheng STAT400 Expecting a B- Anonymous 12/01/2025	Pros: dresses nice, review guides are very similar to the exams so if you diligently do them, you shouldnt struggle on the exams, the quizzes are free points so even though he doesnt tell us the content of the quiz, its simple if you do the homework(lowkey on depends ta tho, my TA was chill, I've heard that the other TA was lowkey bad). He posts the notes, with his voice recording over them, so if you miss lectures, it's not the end of the world. The best thing is that he curves graciously. The average for our second exam was 78; however, he wants the exam averages to be 83, so he curves them up to it. If you do poorly on an exam, these curves are lifesavers. He genuinely tries to ensure that we all do well in this class and listens to us. Cons: homework is pretty hard, I won't lie, but he also gives us a week to do them, and he encourages collaboration with your peers, just don't cheat on it. Regarding my grade, I don't study enough, which is entirely on me; nothing on him. Another con is that there may be gaps in your understanding due to inconsistencies in the notes. Since he is using other people's notes for this class, that may be the reason for these gaps, which could improve in future semesters, as this is his first semester teaching it. Final: These complaints stem from the fact that a 400-level math course is not easy. Shocker!!!. Just be prepared to do the work. He is 3.5, not a 4, but since there is not 3.5, I'm rounding up for my guy. Stop the hate!!!!!
Shixin Zheng STAT400 Expecting an A Anonymous 11/21/2025	Not nearly as bad as the reviews here would suggest. Was admittedly a somewhat poor lecturer the first few weeks with convoluted examples, but definitely improved throughout the course of the semester. Homeworks also only have max 1 proof/theoretical question, the rest are mostly computational and not as hard as suggested. Honestly did not find exams 1 and 2 that hard, even with no prior Stats experience and moderate studying, going to class is key imo even people say otherwise. Zheng also listened to feedback, ended up curving midterms, and provided better material for exam 2. Overall not the best lecturer in the world and still makes things a little confusing at times but got better as the year went on and is an open and nice professor. Take everything else read here with a grain of salt
Shixin Zheng STAT400 Anonymous 11/10/2025	he looks super cool walks into the lecture hall with a fireeee fit and then opens his mouth and everything goes downhill. cannot teach, doesn't give anything to help prepare for exams until like 1-2 days before, and the class is a mess. nobody should be stressing over stat400 like this lol do not take him!!!! he is kind though so at least there's that. but yea i have no clue what im about to get in this class bc he hasn't told us if/how he's curving the class 😹😹😹 just don't take him
Shixin Zheng STAT400 Anonymous 11/10/2025	Crazy hard homework and exams that have no similarity to anything done in class or quizzes. Really poor lectures and exam weighting that will drop your A+ to a C- in no time.
Shixin Zheng STAT400 Anonymous 11/07/2025	During lecture he doesn't go over anything useful. You will leave lecture knowing nothing. On top of that, the homework contains the most difficult quetstions related to the given topic. So if you are only relying on the homeworks you will never come away with even a hint of a foundational understanding of the homework topics. Everything I just went over are all of the resources you will be provided with in this course. If this is the only professor available, just don't do it for your own sake. He has some serious drip though, I can't lie.
Shixin Zheng STAT400 Anonymous 11/04/2025	Usually I do not leave reviews until the course is over, but so far this class is a total MESS. The homework is insanely hard competition math - style questions that are graded on accuracy with no preparation for them. We have weekly quizzes that are pretty easy but there is basically no way to prepare for them and they vary based on TA so this class has one TA that gives easy quizzes while another that gives harder quizzes. The professor has very messy handwriting and on top of that his lectures are all over the place with him sometimes going too slow and rambling on about theories and other times speeding through problems with minimal explanation. Finally, his exam preparation is literally non existent. There are no practice exams provided, the information about the exam is thrown out last minute, and when he did release some practice problems he couldn't even articulate the point of doing them as he said they weren't similar to the exam problems in style or difficulty. I have done a ton of STAT and MATH classes before and this class is an absolute joke and a total disaster so far.
Shixin Zheng STAT400 Expecting a C Anonymous 10/31/2025	Does not teach great but has very nice outfits. Would recommend to teach fashion class instead of stat.
Shixin Zheng STAT400 Anonymous 10/31/2025	Does not go over any practice problems. Just yaps about a bunch of formulas and theories. He did a review session before the midterm and said doing practice problems would not be a good use of our time and instead just yapped about some theoretical stuff that he already yapped about before. This man is a nightmare and should not be teaching this class. Run for you life.
Shixin Zheng STAT400 Anonymous 10/30/2025	goes over no practice problems in class, therefore, leaving us clueless for homeworks and exams. we are 3 weeks behind but he refuses to push the second midterm back. take anyone else but him. this class should not be this much of a struggle.
Shixin Zheng STAT400 Anonymous 10/30/2025	He is the worst option possible for stat400. Take any other professor available over him. I would even suggest delaying this class a semester so you do not have to go through the pain and torture he puts you through.
Shixin Zheng STAT400 Anonymous 10/29/2025	It's his first year so I'm sure he will figure things out but the homework is really useless and not applicable to the course. Best advice is to teach yourself with AI practice problems and hope he releases practice problems relevant to the exams. His handwriting is bad and his notes focus too much on theory than applicability. I did well on the first exam because I grinded practice problems for 16 hours, after skipping all the lectures. Lectures are useless as of now.
Shixin Zheng Anonymous 10/26/2025	Very bad lecturer and explainer, gpt homework and exams, terrible attitude towards grades ("grades are just a letter on a paper", unwillingness to curve).
Shixin Zheng STAT400 Anonymous 10/21/2025	He makes this class impossible. No exaggeration. Do yourself a service and take any other professor.
Shixin Zheng STAT400 Anonymous 10/21/2025	Do not take him. No material, bad notes, no practice questions. Stat400 should not be as hard as he makes it.
Shixin Zheng STAT400 Anonymous 10/20/2025	Do not take him. Alot of problems. In lecture example problems are too convoluted or disorganized No example problems. When we were given example problems 2 days before the exam, they were not useful or similar in any way Midterm questions are nothing but curveballs No practice problems done during the exam review Unbelievably hard homework, doesn't help with learning most of the time Language barrier in the lectures Notes are not great, kinda hard to understand No practice exams Have to use outside resources for at least one or two problems out of each homework every week Our groupme gathered all these problems by the time the first midterms were graded. The TAs are completely delusional too.
Shixin Zheng STAT400 Anonymous 10/20/2025	Puts more effort into his outfits rather than making sure his students understand the concepts and succeed. The lectures lack practical and real world examples like those you would see on quizzes and exams so good luck understanding anything without seeing any sort of useful applications. Trying to solve the homework while only using the lecture notes is impossible. Stay away, your GPA will thank you.
Shixin Zheng STAT400 Anonymous 10/11/2025	Do not take him!!! His explains the material very poorly, assigns impossible homework, and refused to give textbook sections/problems for additional practice.
Shixin Zheng STAT400 Anonymous 09/21/2025	Given that we are only 3 weeks into Zheng's first semester of teaching, I'm only giving 4 stars just to balance out the review below. This is by no means a complete review, though it doesn't immediately justify giving someone a 1-star for that reason. The lectures are loosely based on a drafted version of lecture notes from Jonathan Fernandes and Mestiyage Gunatilleka, both of whom are historically high-regarded professors for STAT400. There are gaps of explanation during the lecture; some parts feel glossed over, likely unintentional due to the nature of reading off the draft notes. There have also been some observable moments of language barrier, such as reading "Independent Trails" instead of "Independent Trials", or some handwriting issues mid-lecture that students occasionally have to raise their hand to question what was written, or correct the professor in writing P(B\|A) instead of P(A\|B). According to Zheng, if he had to put a number on the difficulty of the coursework, he mentioned the following towards the end of the first lecture: "Homeworks are... like an 8/10" "Exams are, 5/10" "The quizzes, these are like 2/10" "The homeworks are by far harder than anything you will see on the exam" As of now, we've only had one homework (no homework was assigned during the first 2 weeks). There were four problems, each one reflecting what we learned in class: basic combinatorics, binomial trials, geometric probability, and the inclusion-exclusion principle. They do not expect you to know the answer just from the lectures alone - it is explicitly encouraged to use outside material (internet included) when completing it. The first midterm isn't till October, the second one isn't till November, and the cumulative final is in December. I cannot speak for how the exams go until then. Whether you choose to go to the lectures is up to your learning style: Are you actually incentivized to study outside of class? Or would you do better with a primer in-person? Until then, take the preceding reviews with a grain of salt.
Shixin Zheng STAT400 Anonymous 09/20/2025	DONT TAKE HIM. THE SEMESTER HAS BARELY STARTED AND I CANT EXPRESS HOW MUCH I REGRET NOT SWITCHING OUT OF THIS SECTION. THE HOMEWORK DOES NOT REFLECT ANYTHING WE DO IN CLASS. PEOPLE WALK OUT OF HIS LECTURES BECAUSE HES JUST WASTING EVERYONES TIME. PLEASE DONT TAKE HIM

Shixin Zheng
STAT400

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/18/2025

It was his first time teaching STAT400, and he didn't know how to format exams, curves, and lectures. He's a nice guy, though his lectures are pretty boring, and most people ended up skipping the lectures towards the end of the semester. The quizzes are simple(depending on the TA). I ended up skipping most of the lectures and going over the practice questions that he gave us, and did decently on most of the exams(around a 85% average). He also gives bonus points on homework towards the end of the semester, and some quizzes get dropped. The final exam was just a copy of the practice exam he gave us; some of the questions were exactly like the practice exam questions. From what I saw, most of the class felt good about the final and thought it was the easiest exam they had taken. I'm sure in the future his class will be more organized, and the lectures will be more thorough. Overall, I would take him again because(at least for me) it was an easy A.

Shixin Zheng
STAT400

Expecting a B
Anonymous
12/18/2025

At first, the course was unreasonably difficult and very disorganized. I think this professor is just new to teaching, so it was a rocky start. Near the end of the course, he improved significantly in his lectures and on top of that, the last few exams were more representitive of the material covered. The homework used to be insanely difficult too, but near the end it was starting to become more managable. I think there is still room for improvement, but throughout the semester he actively worked to improve the course based on feedback.

Shixin Zheng
STAT400

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/18/2025

I'm writing this review just after the final exam for Stat 400. It being his first time teaching at the university, Zheng started the year off rough, with confusing lectures, he was initially bad at explaining topics and gave no insight into what was going to be on each exam. After students expressed their complaints, he really cleaned up his act. For exam #2, he told us what type of problems would be on the exam and gave out practice problems similar to ones on the exam. He also began to give out extra credit points on the homework, which made it easier to recover points. For the final, we were allowed a double sided a4 sheet of notes, and he gave us in-depth practice problems that were very relevant to the problems on the final. I'm giving him a 4 star review because he really turned his teaching style around and doesn't deserve many of the 1 star reviews he was given by students early in the semester, when he was still acclimating to being a teacher for the first time. He also responds quickly to emails and is generally a pretty funny guy in lecture. Please don't shy away from taking his class because of the people who gave him low ratings early in the semester who were upset by their exam 1 results.

Shixin Zheng
STAT400

Expecting a B
Anonymous
12/13/2025

This will be an overall holistic review of his teaching through his first semester and some lore n stuff, this is gonna be fun to write. Week 1 - 3: (Intro stuff, basic set theory, combinations, counting (discrete math stuff), geometric probability, sigma algebra (wtf is that), conditional probability, and some Bayes theorem) Kinda bad, didn't have good examples through class, but wasn't the worst professor ever, started to record lectures with Notability, used the microphone (so ppl in the back of the room can hear him), and has PDFs of the notes after 2-3 weeks. Pretty rough start, but we got there. Week 4 - 6 (First Exam on Week 6) (More Bayes, Random Variables, pmf + cdf for discrete RV's, variance, binomial, geometric, and hypergeometric) Up to this point was decent, I learnt way more through the textbook and Khan Academy and videos, so yeah, also this is when I stopped going to class for a bit (all the career fair stuff was happening n shit) (The practice problems for exam 1 was basically just a random document with 50 easy questions shoved in right the Monday before the exam, just went through what we learnt up to the point) Week 7 - 10 (Fall break + negative binomial, poisson, continuous RVs, pdf, cdf, expected values, and variance. Normal + standard normal distributions, transformation of RV, exponential + gamma + weibull + log normal + gamma distribution) This week we had to go to the hotel cuz idk wtf the be doing in the Armory. This is when he turned around and became the GOAT, went to his office hours a lot between exam 1 and 2 to ask for him to help us a bit with either doing practice problems, bonus points, practice, or (Telling us exactly what type of questions would be). He said he'll think about it. We also signed a petition to ask for like either it was like bonus points or smt or like a review. And he was like (damn these kids lmao, but he did help us tho). The Tuesday right before exam 2, he said, "You have 5 questions. These are the topics to study up on, kiddos." It definitely helped me, which was nice. There was like 1 problem on negative hypergeometric (we didn't learn it, but we had to try and derive it; most ppl got 13/20 on it was super lenient on grading). Also, week 10, he started to do bonus points on the HW yeaaaa!!! Week (11 - 13): (Joint RV, Joint pdf, marginal pdf, conditional pdf, expected values, covariance and correlation, some intro statistic stuff, point estimation, methods of point estimation (Method of Moments) He started to do curves this week (thank the heavens). Other than that, this week was pretty chill. The examples were at least starting to get better, and he kinda explained like why they mattered and what it kinda means in the bigger picture. We also had the opportunity for a 2.5% grade bonus in class on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving Break. (Curve method linear transformation with the average score and max score if avg less than 83, curve up) Exam 1 Cuve = new score = 0.708 x old score + 29.17 Exam 2 Curve = new score = 0.7831 x old score + 21.69 Final Exam Curve (Maybe if we get a lower than 83% class average) Week (14 - 15) (Hypothesis testing, linear regression, MLE estimator) Slower week, was nothing crazy, we got the practice for the final 2 weeks before the final Sunday at 12:34 am, I also emailed him at 3:00 pm Sunday and said he would give it after he got home, my ass was waiting for him to post it. TAs kinda did the funny with the quizzes, and the professor had to fix their problems with not creating the same quizzes n shit, but yea We'll see for the final exam and if any new things happen, but he said that he would make the final exam easier and only 8 problems, so it should be good (I hope) Exam 1 Stats 76 avg and the highest grade was 100 Exam 2 Stats 78.29 avg and the highest grade was 100 So, not the worst and definitely got better, I guess if you can self-teach yourself first, then read his lecture recording/notes after you understand the topic, then you can ask some questions and maybe pick out some more things better in the lecture. I think he's pretty chill and yeah :thumbs_up: Hopes this helps anyone for Spring 2025 or any future semesters of STAT400 he teaches, and I hope he continues to enjoy teaching and being nice to his students Don't wanna glaze him or hate on him too much, but I think a 3 or 4 is a good rating for him.

Shixin Zheng
STAT400

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/13/2025

Some things to note about the other reviews for this class, most of them were made after the first midterm. which was quite difficult and had a pretty low average. After some discussing, Professor Zheng agreed to add a curve to all the exams and the final and it was a pretty nice curve too. He also made exam 2 much easier than exam 1 and gave much better practice material, so most of these reviews are complaining about an un-curved, difficult, ill-prepared exam you won't get. About the class itself, the homework is quite difficult, much much harder than the exams or anything else you will see in class except a few examples. Professor Zheng gives out a lot of bonus points on the homework however, which makes getting a 100% in the homework category quite easy. There are weekly quizzes in discussion written by the TA's, but these are very easy compared to everything else. The review guides are pretty comprehensive and covered everything on exam 2. We did not finish all the content in the class (didn't make it to one topic) but covered almost everything so you'll still learn. I also think this class should definitely have MATH240 as a prereq, but the professor nerfed all the joint-pdf questions so knowledge from that class isn't required. Overall, STAT400 is a difficult class but Professor Zheng did a good job (in the second half of the semester) of teaching and preparing you for the exams. Take most of the reviews before the middle of November or with a W with a grain of salt, as these are from before the curve and massive improvement in Professor Zheng's teaching and preparation material.

Shixin Zheng
STAT400

Expecting a B
Anonymous
12/10/2025

Responded well to criticism and made changes in the middle of the semester to accommodate for his students. For example, the homework at the beginning of the semester was very hard compared to what he makes now. The homework is much more relevant to what we are doing in class, and he created bonus questions for those of us who want a bump to our grade. Another example is how he helped us prepare for midterm 2. Although he released the practice questions a little late, they were very helpful for what we would see on the test. I went from a <50% midterm 1 grade, to just barely a 90% on midterm 2. Also, he curved exams that had an average below 83 generously. To everyone reading all of his reviews and preparing for the worst, I promise you its not that bad at all. Some people are just coping such as the review below mines.

Shixin Zheng
STAT400

Expecting an A
Anonymous
12/04/2025

Not as bad as the other reviews say at all, was a little bit rough at first but he improved as a lecturer throughout the course. Also listened to student feedback, helped us prepare better for midterm 2, eventually curved Midterms 1 and 2, and added bonus points on homework. Nice guy, sometimes a little confusing examples but provided more relevant and easy to understand examples. His first time teaching and he definitely got better throughout, 1 star rating is 100% undeserved. Also does have fire fits every class.

Shixin Zheng
STAT400

Expecting a W
Anonymous
12/02/2025

As stated below, this man should be teaching a fashion class. THET465 would be a better fit for his teaching. He has very nice outfits but is not an effective teacher. Homework is too difficult and the exams don't match the content taught in class.

Shixin Zheng
STAT400

Expecting a B-
Anonymous
12/01/2025

Pros: dresses nice, review guides are very similar to the exams so if you diligently do them, you shouldnt struggle on the exams, the quizzes are free points so even though he doesnt tell us the content of the quiz, its simple if you do the homework(lowkey on depends ta tho, my TA was chill, I've heard that the other TA was lowkey bad). He posts the notes, with his voice recording over them, so if you miss lectures, it's not the end of the world. The best thing is that he curves graciously. The average for our second exam was 78; however, he wants the exam averages to be 83, so he curves them up to it. If you do poorly on an exam, these curves are lifesavers. He genuinely tries to ensure that we all do well in this class and listens to us. Cons: homework is pretty hard, I won't lie, but he also gives us a week to do them, and he encourages collaboration with your peers, just don't cheat on it. Regarding my grade, I don't study enough, which is entirely on me; nothing on him. Another con is that there may be gaps in your understanding due to inconsistencies in the notes. Since he is using other people's notes for this class, that may be the reason for these gaps, which could improve in future semesters, as this is his first semester teaching it. Final: These complaints stem from the fact that a 400-level math course is not easy. Shocker!!!. Just be prepared to do the work. He is 3.5, not a 4, but since there is not 3.5, I'm rounding up for my guy. Stop the hate!!!!!

Shixin Zheng
STAT400

Expecting an A
Anonymous
11/21/2025

Not nearly as bad as the reviews here would suggest. Was admittedly a somewhat poor lecturer the first few weeks with convoluted examples, but definitely improved throughout the course of the semester. Homeworks also only have max 1 proof/theoretical question, the rest are mostly computational and not as hard as suggested. Honestly did not find exams 1 and 2 that hard, even with no prior Stats experience and moderate studying, going to class is key imo even people say otherwise. Zheng also listened to feedback, ended up curving midterms, and provided better material for exam 2. Overall not the best lecturer in the world and still makes things a little confusing at times but got better as the year went on and is an open and nice professor. Take everything else read here with a grain of salt

Shixin Zheng
STAT400

Anonymous
11/10/2025

he looks super cool walks into the lecture hall with a fireeee fit and then opens his mouth and everything goes downhill. cannot teach, doesn't give anything to help prepare for exams until like 1-2 days before, and the class is a mess. nobody should be stressing over stat400 like this lol do not take him!!!! he is kind though so at least there's that. but yea i have no clue what im about to get in this class bc he hasn't told us if/how he's curving the class 😹😹😹 just don't take him

Shixin Zheng
STAT400

Anonymous
11/10/2025

Crazy hard homework and exams that have no similarity to anything done in class or quizzes. Really poor lectures and exam weighting that will drop your A+ to a C- in no time.

Shixin Zheng
STAT400

Anonymous
11/07/2025

During lecture he doesn't go over anything useful. You will leave lecture knowing nothing. On top of that, the homework contains the most difficult quetstions related to the given topic. So if you are only relying on the homeworks you will never come away with even a hint of a foundational understanding of the homework topics. Everything I just went over are all of the resources you will be provided with in this course. If this is the only professor available, just don't do it for your own sake. He has some serious drip though, I can't lie.

Shixin Zheng
STAT400

Anonymous
11/04/2025

Usually I do not leave reviews until the course is over, but so far this class is a total MESS. The homework is insanely hard competition math - style questions that are graded on accuracy with no preparation for them. We have weekly quizzes that are pretty easy but there is basically no way to prepare for them and they vary based on TA so this class has one TA that gives easy quizzes while another that gives harder quizzes. The professor has very messy handwriting and on top of that his lectures are all over the place with him sometimes going too slow and rambling on about theories and other times speeding through problems with minimal explanation. Finally, his exam preparation is literally non existent. There are no practice exams provided, the information about the exam is thrown out last minute, and when he did release some practice problems he couldn't even articulate the point of doing them as he said they weren't similar to the exam problems in style or difficulty. I have done a ton of STAT and MATH classes before and this class is an absolute joke and a total disaster so far.

Shixin Zheng
STAT400

Expecting a C
Anonymous
10/31/2025

Does not teach great but has very nice outfits. Would recommend to teach fashion class instead of stat.

Shixin Zheng
STAT400

Anonymous
10/31/2025

Does not go over any practice problems. Just yaps about a bunch of formulas and theories. He did a review session before the midterm and said doing practice problems would not be a good use of our time and instead just yapped about some theoretical stuff that he already yapped about before. This man is a nightmare and should not be teaching this class. Run for you life.

Shixin Zheng
STAT400

Anonymous
10/30/2025

goes over no practice problems in class, therefore, leaving us clueless for homeworks and exams. we are 3 weeks behind but he refuses to push the second midterm back. take anyone else but him. this class should not be this much of a struggle.

Shixin Zheng
STAT400

Anonymous
10/30/2025

He is the worst option possible for stat400. Take any other professor available over him. I would even suggest delaying this class a semester so you do not have to go through the pain and torture he puts you through.

Shixin Zheng
STAT400

Anonymous
10/29/2025

It's his first year so I'm sure he will figure things out but the homework is really useless and not applicable to the course. Best advice is to teach yourself with AI practice problems and hope he releases practice problems relevant to the exams. His handwriting is bad and his notes focus too much on theory than applicability. I did well on the first exam because I grinded practice problems for 16 hours, after skipping all the lectures. Lectures are useless as of now.

Shixin Zheng
STAT400

Anonymous
10/21/2025

He makes this class impossible. No exaggeration. Do yourself a service and take any other professor.

Shixin Zheng
STAT400

Anonymous
10/21/2025

Do not take him. No material, bad notes, no practice questions. Stat400 should not be as hard as he makes it.

Shixin Zheng
STAT400

Anonymous
10/20/2025

Do not take him. Alot of problems. In lecture example problems are too convoluted or disorganized No example problems. When we were given example problems 2 days before the exam, they were not useful or similar in any way Midterm questions are nothing but curveballs No practice problems done during the exam review Unbelievably hard homework, doesn't help with learning most of the time Language barrier in the lectures Notes are not great, kinda hard to understand No practice exams Have to use outside resources for at least one or two problems out of each homework every week Our groupme gathered all these problems by the time the first midterms were graded. The TAs are completely delusional too.

Shixin Zheng
STAT400

Anonymous
10/20/2025

Puts more effort into his outfits rather than making sure his students understand the concepts and succeed. The lectures lack practical and real world examples like those you would see on quizzes and exams so good luck understanding anything without seeing any sort of useful applications. Trying to solve the homework while only using the lecture notes is impossible. Stay away, your GPA will thank you.

Shixin Zheng
STAT400

Anonymous
10/11/2025

Do not take him!!! His explains the material very poorly, assigns impossible homework, and refused to give textbook sections/problems for additional practice.

Shixin Zheng
STAT400

Anonymous
09/21/2025

Given that we are only 3 weeks into Zheng's first semester of teaching, I'm only giving 4 stars just to balance out the review below. This is by no means a complete review, though it doesn't immediately justify giving someone a 1-star for that reason. The lectures are loosely based on a drafted version of lecture notes from Jonathan Fernandes and Mestiyage Gunatilleka, both of whom are historically high-regarded professors for STAT400. There are gaps of explanation during the lecture; some parts feel glossed over, likely unintentional due to the nature of reading off the draft notes. There have also been some observable moments of language barrier, such as reading "Independent Trails" instead of "Independent Trials", or some handwriting issues mid-lecture that students occasionally have to raise their hand to question what was written, or correct the professor in writing P(B|A) instead of P(A|B). According to Zheng, if he had to put a number on the difficulty of the coursework, he mentioned the following towards the end of the first lecture: "Homeworks are... like an 8/10" "Exams are, 5/10" "The quizzes, these are like 2/10" "The homeworks are by far harder than anything you will see on the exam" As of now, we've only had one homework (no homework was assigned during the first 2 weeks). There were four problems, each one reflecting what we learned in class: basic combinatorics, binomial trials, geometric probability, and the inclusion-exclusion principle. They do not expect you to know the answer just from the lectures alone - it is explicitly encouraged to use outside material (internet included) when completing it. The first midterm isn't till October, the second one isn't till November, and the cumulative final is in December. I cannot speak for how the exams go until then. Whether you choose to go to the lectures is up to your learning style: Are you actually incentivized to study outside of class? Or would you do better with a primer in-person? Until then, take the preceding reviews with a grain of salt.

Shixin Zheng
STAT400

Anonymous
09/20/2025

DONT TAKE HIM. THE SEMESTER HAS BARELY STARTED AND I CANT EXPRESS HOW MUCH I REGRET NOT SWITCHING OUT OF THIS SECTION. THE HOMEWORK DOES NOT REFLECT ANYTHING WE DO IN CLASS. PEOPLE WALK OUT OF HIS LECTURES BECAUSE HES JUST WASTING EVERYONES TIME. PLEASE DONT TAKE HIM