STAT 2020

The professor: Honestly I loved this class, and I thought Maria was truly an effective professor. She explains everything, and I mean everything (including every detail and method) very slowly, and I absolutely appreciated this!! I'm a snail when it comes to learning math/stats, so I really appreciated her explaining things that way. As the semester progressed, I started to increase the speed in which I watched her YouTube videos, and I highly recommend the following: go through the slides first and take notes on the writings etc., then watch her videos on 2x speed. It's a lot faster and more efficient than watching and copying her videos on 1x speed or pausing on 2x speed, and without pauses, you can learn things a lot better without breaks in them. Maria makes herself readily available literally every day of the week, multiple times a day. I've NEVER had a professor be this available before, and I appreciated that literally any student could have a chance to meet with her. She is kind, a bit quirky, and definitely helpful with her explanations. Loved her!!

The class: There's asynchronous days to watch her videos on Tuesdays, and live classes on Thursdays. I had to do this class during COVID. She used Teams instead of Zoom, and we would get assigned to random groups on Thursdays to do the class problems/participation. If your group mates slack, absolutely don't put their name on the work and let Maria know. I wish I was more vigilant about this during my time taking the class. We also had labs on Tuesdays, which were fine. If you have 4 people in your group, you can easily get the labs done in 25 minutes tops. However, if you have 3 people, it can take most of the time. If you have questions about the labs, I'd say to ask once during lab and then to go during a lab OH and double confirm. Sometimes it can be really easy to lose points on labs, which make up 20% of our overall grades. My group would often ask a TA to check things, and he would say they're right, and then we'd get them marked wrong by our grader. Labs can be an easy grade if you let it, but you just have to make sure that your stuff is right! Homeworks, we have them weekly and we get 2 attempts on each problem. If you have any issues with understanding a homework, just go to OH and Maria will gladly clarify them (same with the YouTube video grade scope quizzes). Finally, you'll have 3 exams (2 exams and a final, which is just an exam 3). I'd say make sure you read every detail carefully, including the fine print to make sure you don't miss any points. The exams are timed, and they can be kind of difficult to take with poor or spotty internet.

Grading: I think the grading is fair, but because this is such a large class and it's online, mistakes may be made at times. Definitely make sure you check your quizzes and your exams and labs to make sure no mistakes were made. Besides that, I thought it was pretty lax and fair (for exams). I would say this class is an easy A- for sure. If you put in the work, an A would be attainable absolutely!

Professor Ferrara's class is a great class to take as a beginner Statistics class. Although she does tend to overexplain concepts— which can deem to be a little much, does help to reinforce test prep in the long run. This class was online when I took it and I really liked the concept that the lecture were asynchronous with a "discussion section" being one of the lecture days to go over practice problems. Labs were slightly relevant to the topics and also provided a background with using R. Overall really great class and an easy A.

I took AP stats in high school and stats always seemed fairly straight forward and easy to me so I'm not sure if this review will be applicable to everyone. I thought this was the easiest 4 credits of my life. The labs were annoying to go to but a joke for the most part if you watch the lab videos. The exams had some tricky multiple choice questions but there were not many at all. The homework can also be annoying but they weren't bad. Every week there was a synchronous lecture which also sucked to go to but only a little over 2 hours a week for synchronous sessions (lab+class) for a good grade is worth it. Maria was also very nice and approachable.

For a stats class, I would say this one was pretty good. Maria is a good professor, although at some points I found lectures to be a drag because she would over-explain some concepts. I went to every lecture even if there was a pre-recorded topic video, but you could get away with not going if you understand the concepts in those videos (certain topics she will post a video of her going through the power-point and then in class she reviews the major concepts). The sapling homework can be time consuming, but you do have two chances to answer questions correctly. Labs are pretty easy and you can go to office hours and they will tell you exactly what they are looking for. Make sure to fully explain your answers though because, depending on the TA, they may nit-pick and take off points. I would recommend this class if you need to fulfill the stat requirement for pre-med or just need to take a math class; the work isn't too bad, but make sure you put in the effort.

I highly, highly, HIGHLY recommend you take this course if you are are premed (or related) and/or you need to fulfill a statistics requirement. Maria is one of the better professors I have had here at UVA. She makes sure to go in depth in class and leaves room for questions. She is very willing to help you out if you are struggling, but you have to be willing to put in the work if you want to do well in this course. Once again, highly recommend!

This class was definetly worthwhile. I learned alot, and I would definetly recommend it, especially if you need a math requirement and a cs integration elective! Maria really teaches it like an introductory course; the beginning is quite slow as she introduces many concepts that alot of people already know, but still makes sure that everyone in the class understands everything. She posts topic videos on YouTube which are very detailed and beneficial for doing the homework assignments and understanding the concepts of that topic. I wouldn't say it's necessary to go to class if she posts a topic video, but it can be helpful to if you want to ask questions. Lab is mandatory attendance, but it's super helpful as what she does in lab during her code-alongs is very similar to the questions on her lab assignments. If you ever get stuck, just go to office hours; they will literally check over answers with you. Homework might take a bit, but it's not hard. So overall, per week, you have 1 lab and 1 hw assignment due. Certain topics have online videos you need to watch for them (which I usually put at 2x speed cause she goes a little slow), and then take a quiz on, which just asks you something you learned or something you still don't get (very easy), so you might have that additional assigment certain weeks. There are 3 exams. The multiple choice can be tricky at times, and are mostly concept based. There are usually 15-16 questions so you can only miss a few. The open ended questions are very similar to her practice problems, so do them! I will say, the exam averages were higher in my semester due to the covid situation as our exams 2 and 3 became open notes, however, our exam 1 was in person, and if you do the practice problems that she posts for each topic covered on the exam and take the practice exam (these 2 are key!!!!), you will be solid. Be aware though, to get an A in this class, you need to get a 94. She only rounds to 2 decimal places in all her grading, so even if you get a 93.99, it will still be an A-, and she makes no exceptions. I ended the class with an A, and I would say it is an easy 4 credit A/A- if you put in the work to study, which you should cause Maria provides you with more than enough study material to succeed.
For reference, the syllabus breakdown for this course was: Homework (10%), Symposium (5%), Lab (25%), 3 Exams (60%).

Easy class if you need a statistics requirement. Maria is a very fun person, and she speaks very slowly, so it's easy to understand what she's saying. Course starts off very slow, because you'll most likely have experience to the topics taught in the beginnning, but as the semester progresses the difficulty picks up but it's still not by any means hard. Maria gives practice tests before each test. These practice tests are almost the exact same as the actual tests, both in content covered and format. Do the practice tests, review over difficult concepts, and you'll be fine. I have a 100 in the class going into the last exam. The exams are not difficult if you just take time to practice and understand what is being taught. Also, labs are a good introduction to R. Not really applicable for the tests, and I appreciate that. I like learning stuff for the sake of learning it. Highly recommend this class!

Not a difficult class at all. If you have any math proficiency it'll be a breeze. Don't take it too lightly though. Don't need the textbook, work together on lab assignments and how to maximize those points. Exams are weird in that they're not too difficult but it's easy to do bad because of the weighting. They're half MC/half open-ended but there's only about 13 MC questions each exam so if you miss one that's about 3-4%. I would study hard for the exams about 2-3 days in advance going through all the ppts, hw, and the practice exam. I wouldn't pay attention to the lecture either and got an A overall. Not a hard course, you'll be fine.

This course's lectures are mostly online, which makes attending the class unnecessary. However, the lab is required. The homework and labs are simple and easy but can be time-consuming. The instructor attempts to make this course interactive, but based on my experience it was not. The exams were difficult due to no credit on the multiple-choice section and can lower your grade quickly. This course is very quick-paced. If you need a statistics class however I would recommend it over the others, but would not take it if you want an easy A.

The class is 60% exams, 5% symposium, 25% lab, and 10 % homework. The homework is all online but she only gives you 2 attempts to get the right answer or the whole problem is wrong. The labs are easy if you go to office hours. As long as you do the practice exam bunch of times then you will do fine on the actual exam. This was the first class ive ever gotten an A+ in at UVA.