STAT 3280

I really liked this course overall, but there were a few things about it (really one big thing) that annoyed me and generally make me hesitate to fully recommend this course. I learned a lot about what goes into effective graphs and how to use R and R-adjacent tools to create them, which will definitely be very useful in the professional world. The coursework itself was generally not that difficult - there is, on average, one homework and one classwork assignment per week, with an occasional extra assignment or mini-project thrown in. There's also a final dashboard-type project, which you do NOT want to procrastinate on, as others have mentioned.

My only major gripe with this course is the grading system - Professor Ross uses "specifications grading", which in theory means that an assignment either gets a 1 or a 0 depending on whether said assignment passes "specs". In practice this basically means "A or nothing" for every single assignment, with the "specs" in question being very vague and subjective. Graphs and charts aren't an exact science, which makes it hard to determine what "passing" actually looks like in practice unless you attend office hours consistently. I think most people end up doing pretty well in this course regardless, but it was a bit frustrating trying to get my redo tokens and everything to work out along the way, which could have been avoided if a regular percentage grading system were used.

The actual course content was interesting and quite useful. I had never thought about data visualization in the manner presented throughout this course with various principles. The HW assignments were mostly useful in reinforcing knowledge about different data visualization principles and tools. The project was also thorough. There were 10 HWs, 15 in class assignments, 2 plot activities, and the final project (with 2 extra credit tokens), but the class was graded on specs grading (either you passed specs on an assignment or not). Here is where the course wasn't so good: the vagueness of passing specs on assignments WAS HUGE. I spent hours trying to figure out what would pass specs, only to email Ross and find out that I still hadn't passed specs yet. If the assignments were extremely clear on what would pass specs, then the assignments are actually enjoyable and pretty easy overall.
Note: DO NOT try and complete the project in a weekend, it takes 12+ hours (although you are allowed to use GenAI to help)

The actual course content was interesting and quite useful. I had never thought about data visualization in the manner presented throughout this course with various principles. The HW assignments were mostly useful in reinforcing knowledge about different data visualization principles and tools. The project was also thorough. There were 10 HWs, 15 in class assignments, 2 plot activities, and the final project (with 2 extra credit tokens), but the class was graded on specs grading (either you passed specs on an assignment or not). Here is where the course wasn't so good: the vagueness of passing specs on assignments WAS HUGE. I spent hours trying to figure out what would pass specs, only to email Ross and find out that I still hadn't passed specs yet. If the assignments were extremely clear on what would pass specs, then the assignments are actually enjoyable and pretty easy overall.
Note: DO NOT try and complete the project in a weekend, it takes 12+ hours (although you are allowed to use GenAI to help)

I'll start by saying Ross is a good person and cares about the students.

Ross is also generally clueless when it comes to teaching and is extremely inconsistent. Assignments were unclear and often tedious. There is a project due at the end of the semester, I would recommend starting this earlier than you think. It takes a good 20-30 hours to complete, and more if Ross decided you did not meet his specs (which were ambiguous to begin with). Not the hardest class but wouldn't recommend taking it with Ross.