MATH 170A
Probability Theory
Description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Requisites: courses 32B, 33A. Not open to students with credit for Electrical Engineering 131A or Statistics 100A. Probability distributions, random variables and vectors, expectation. P/NP or letter grading.
Units: 4.0
Units: 4.0
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Most Helpful Review
Spring 2018 - There are 3 parts in 170A: basics, discrete random variables, continuous random variables. Tang initially said there should be 5 to 7 homeworks. However, it turned out that he only assigned 3 homeworks altogether which correspond to the 3 topics. Test is not hard except for the last question(which is optional if you have extra time). Questions are all from lecture notes, homework and practice exams, with a little change. I honestly don't get why most people scored badly in the exams because questions are all quite familiar. A one-page cheat sheet is allowed for each exam. Overall, Tang is a great lecturer who teaches very clearly and is generous with giving As.
Spring 2018 - There are 3 parts in 170A: basics, discrete random variables, continuous random variables. Tang initially said there should be 5 to 7 homeworks. However, it turned out that he only assigned 3 homeworks altogether which correspond to the 3 topics. Test is not hard except for the last question(which is optional if you have extra time). Questions are all from lecture notes, homework and practice exams, with a little change. I honestly don't get why most people scored badly in the exams because questions are all quite familiar. A one-page cheat sheet is allowed for each exam. Overall, Tang is a great lecturer who teaches very clearly and is generous with giving As.
Most Helpful Review
I took his class this fall and he's very fair in terms of the difficulty of midterms and finals (Very comprehensive and not out of the blue). Study his notes and do the homework and really don't stress out too much about this class. I think his curve is very generous in terms of getting B's I didn't perform well on the final and THE MIDTERMS and only did somewhat well on the hw and I got a B-. However, I do believe from listening to others getting in the A range is very tough. You must be meticulous with every point. Maybe this is true for all upper division math classes? The professor cares about your learning a lot. In office hours, he doesn't mind answering any question you have and he tries to elaborate to teach you what you need to know. His notes are also very thought out and he doesn't go too quickly at all in comparison to some other professors. I recommend him a lot! (Just be careful if you're trying to get an A)
I took his class this fall and he's very fair in terms of the difficulty of midterms and finals (Very comprehensive and not out of the blue). Study his notes and do the homework and really don't stress out too much about this class. I think his curve is very generous in terms of getting B's I didn't perform well on the final and THE MIDTERMS and only did somewhat well on the hw and I got a B-. However, I do believe from listening to others getting in the A range is very tough. You must be meticulous with every point. Maybe this is true for all upper division math classes? The professor cares about your learning a lot. In office hours, he doesn't mind answering any question you have and he tries to elaborate to teach you what you need to know. His notes are also very thought out and he doesn't go too quickly at all in comparison to some other professors. I recommend him a lot! (Just be careful if you're trying to get an A)
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Winter 2018 - This is for MATH142. Don't be fool when you look at the grade distribution. She does NOT curve, so the class that has this grade distribution was a strong class itself (no + or -, or at least that's what she said), and based on my first midterm her test is not easy either. More than half of the class got a C, 1/4 got B, the rest are A, D, F. What I don't like about this class is that I found her lecture is not well organized sometime. She tries to build her lecture up step by step to make her points. That sounds like a good plan, but she doesn't know how to do that. Instead of giving an idea, then show the point of that idea within one lecture, she threw out a bunch of different things and only made her points after 2,3 lectures. Most of the time her lectures left me confused and not know what she was doing, then when she finally made her point, I was "Ahhh! so that's what all of this was for". I really don't like this because some of her ideas before the actually concepts were just "reference" and never be used again after. She makes lots of mistakes during lectures, too. She is also kind of hard to approach, at least that is how I feel when she replied to other students' questions. Overall, I don't think she is a good lecture nor does she care about student's success. She is not a really bad choice, but just don't think she will give out bunch of As just because of this grade distribution.
Winter 2018 - This is for MATH142. Don't be fool when you look at the grade distribution. She does NOT curve, so the class that has this grade distribution was a strong class itself (no + or -, or at least that's what she said), and based on my first midterm her test is not easy either. More than half of the class got a C, 1/4 got B, the rest are A, D, F. What I don't like about this class is that I found her lecture is not well organized sometime. She tries to build her lecture up step by step to make her points. That sounds like a good plan, but she doesn't know how to do that. Instead of giving an idea, then show the point of that idea within one lecture, she threw out a bunch of different things and only made her points after 2,3 lectures. Most of the time her lectures left me confused and not know what she was doing, then when she finally made her point, I was "Ahhh! so that's what all of this was for". I really don't like this because some of her ideas before the actually concepts were just "reference" and never be used again after. She makes lots of mistakes during lectures, too. She is also kind of hard to approach, at least that is how I feel when she replied to other students' questions. Overall, I don't think she is a good lecture nor does she care about student's success. She is not a really bad choice, but just don't think she will give out bunch of As just because of this grade distribution.
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Fall 2017 - Before I start writing this review, I have to address the complaints put forward by his 3 series students: You do realize that his grading scheme is literally par for the department, correct? 25% A's and ~65% A's and B's is roughly how most professors spread out the grading. In fact, it's one of the most lenient distributions. His scheme is very lenient as well. Some professors don't even allow you to drop a midterm. White allows you to drop a midterm and two homeworks/quizzes. The "numbers don't lie" except they are comparable to, or better than, most of the professors out there, and just because Greene is an amazing professor does not mean White is a terrible one. White did have actual flaws as a professor when it comes to experience. He did explain concepts well for the most part, but would often get stuck in the middle of a proof or forget a fact under pressure. This made him hard to follow on certain days. For a math class, the homework was not very satisfactory. There were only six homework sets that you even had to consider, because there were only 3 homeworks and 3 quizzes with only a few problems graded on each, and messing up on a few could get you off to a very bad start (10/20 on the first homework personally was scary), even with the ability to drop two of them. That being said, he was still effective at getting the job done, had a good sense of humor, was very helpful on Piazza and outside of class and approachable to anyone who sought him out, and wrote very fair midterms and a fair final where each question had multiple ways in which you could go about solving it. Overall, I would definitely recommend taking 170A with White.
Fall 2017 - Before I start writing this review, I have to address the complaints put forward by his 3 series students: You do realize that his grading scheme is literally par for the department, correct? 25% A's and ~65% A's and B's is roughly how most professors spread out the grading. In fact, it's one of the most lenient distributions. His scheme is very lenient as well. Some professors don't even allow you to drop a midterm. White allows you to drop a midterm and two homeworks/quizzes. The "numbers don't lie" except they are comparable to, or better than, most of the professors out there, and just because Greene is an amazing professor does not mean White is a terrible one. White did have actual flaws as a professor when it comes to experience. He did explain concepts well for the most part, but would often get stuck in the middle of a proof or forget a fact under pressure. This made him hard to follow on certain days. For a math class, the homework was not very satisfactory. There were only six homework sets that you even had to consider, because there were only 3 homeworks and 3 quizzes with only a few problems graded on each, and messing up on a few could get you off to a very bad start (10/20 on the first homework personally was scary), even with the ability to drop two of them. That being said, he was still effective at getting the job done, had a good sense of humor, was very helpful on Piazza and outside of class and approachable to anyone who sought him out, and wrote very fair midterms and a fair final where each question had multiple ways in which you could go about solving it. Overall, I would definitely recommend taking 170A with White.
Most Helpful Review
He's a really solid professor. He has a very dry voice and sense of humor and his side comments can be hilarious. He presents the material well and is easy to understand, and is good at explaining problems in a step by step manner. Definitely one of the best math professors I've had at UCLA. His class is pretty standard with 2 midterms and a final, he assigns but doesn't collect homework, and there are once a week quizzes that take two questions straight from the homework (so plan on attending discussion).
He's a really solid professor. He has a very dry voice and sense of humor and his side comments can be hilarious. He presents the material well and is easy to understand, and is good at explaining problems in a step by step manner. Definitely one of the best math professors I've had at UCLA. His class is pretty standard with 2 midterms and a final, he assigns but doesn't collect homework, and there are once a week quizzes that take two questions straight from the homework (so plan on attending discussion).
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