STAT 5120

I really appreciate the energy that Professor Zhang puts into teaching the class. I feel that out of all the statistics professors I have had the serendipity (or misfortune) of encountering, she is the best. She teaches the concepts with confidence, great knowledge, and organization. She pushed us a little hard at one point when she was running behind schedule but you know, she had a schedule! And she wrote the exams based on what she had time to teach us, not based on what she wanted to get done in x amount of time. Homeworks (weekly) were usually, out of 4 problems, one R problem and maybe one straightforward proof. The rest were your typical problem set.
You get one letter sized paper for notes for exam 1, then two pages for exam 2, and concomitantly, 3 for the final exam. This came in very handy and made the exams a lot less stressful and a lot easier. On that note, I found it very useful to come in for class and take notes. I didn't even buy the textbook... her lecture slides (on Collab) and notes were that good! And like I said, she writes the exams based on her teachings, which I liked.
So, anyway. I really liked her and the class is required for most statistics majors anyway, so if you can, take it with her!

I really enjoyed this class. Tingting is great professor. She puts a lot of effort into the class and it's obvious that she wants her students to understand and do well. There is a weird dynamic where she wants class participation but then asks questions that are over everyone's head so that can be odd. But she does a good job explaining things and her slides are helpful supplements. Homeworks are weekly and overall were good (feels weird to say that about homework). They were no BS and just made sure you understood the material. Usually an R problem and then some written problems. For each midterm, you get a cheat sheet front and back (and they accumulate so you get 2 for the second and 3 for the final). The first midterm was super easy and then she realized she made it way too easy, so she stepped it up for the second midterm and the final which were much more difficult but reasonable. This was a well run, not too stressful, interesting and useful class with a caring professor and I would highly recommend it!

She'll let you calculate everything in R in homework and then suddenly ask you to do those calculation manually during exams. Avoid if you can.

Homeworks take about 2 to 3 hours a week. You are allowed cheet sheets (up to 3 on the final). If you know how to do calculations by hand you will get at least an 80% on the exams. The other 20% are proofs. Attend reviews. Also... "Is the answer YES? Is it NO? Or you not know?".