MATH 170E
Introduction to Probability and Statistics 1: Probability
Description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Requisite: course 32B. Highly recommended: course 61 or 70. Not open to students with credit for course 170A, Electrical and Computer Engineering 131A, or Statistics 100A. Introduction to probability theory with emphasis on topics relevant to applications. Topics include discrete (binomial, Poisson, etc.) and continuous (exponential, gamma, chi-square, normal) distributions, bivariate distributions, distributions of functions of random variables (including moment generating functions and central limit theorem). P/NP or letter grading.
Units: 4.0
Units: 4.0
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Most Helpful Review
Winter 2023 - If you just want an easy A, Forlano is not your professor, as he generally tries to center his exams at an 80-85% median. If you really want to learn the concepts taught in class, Forlano is a great professor to take 170E with. He does a great job of breaking down the concepts in lecture for everyone, including non-math majors, went through all of the 170e curriculum (apparently one of the other 170e professors winter 2023 did not get anywhere close to finishing), and the homework generally does a good job of expanding on the concepts in class. Lectures may have been a bit dry, but he did record them via bruincast, so watching at 1.5x speed worked well, pausing when I needed to take notes. He also posted the annotated slides after the lecture which came in handy a couple of times. The homework tends to be on the theoretical side, with lots of "demonstrate X given Y" questions; some are fairly trivial, a few required a lot of calculation that I felt was unnecessarily long (extensive double sum problems anyone?) and/or required some insight, so I would definitely recommend blocking off your schedule to attend, in addition to discussions, office hours with a TA or the professor for the occasional question you get stuck on. I also heard before taking his class that homeworks are very long, but I personally didn't experience that, probably because I took heavy advantage of office hours (the TAs for my class were awesome but are graduating soon - thanks Ben Jarman for all of your support!). While the homework was not super close to the actual exams (the exams were almost all computational), I felt that it did a good job of forcing understanding of the topics needed for them if you first put in decent effort on the homework yourself before getting help. At the beginning, homeworks due friday only used concepts taught the week before it was due, but towards the end it started catching up with concepts touched on wednesday being used in the homeworks due that friday. Exams were in my opinion fair: they were very similar to the practice exams Forlano gave out (but not like copy-pasted wording) and weren't super difficult but they weren't easy either. Forlano also clearly made an effort to minimize multi-part question penalties, so almost always part B was solvable even without knowing how to do part A, and grading was also generous and fast (<7 day turnaround for all exams even with 160 students). Definitely make sure you work on a cheat sheet for the exams as you go along, as you'll need to know the different types of random variables and how to use them by the second midterm. Not specific to Forlano but just 170e in general, but definitely get used to doing basic double integrals before taking this class. It appears at the very end, and unfortunately 32a isn't a prereq/coreq but 95%+ will have taken it, so you'll be at a massive disadvantage if you don't. All in all, I would definitely take another math class with Forlano, You do not need the textbook.
Winter 2023 - If you just want an easy A, Forlano is not your professor, as he generally tries to center his exams at an 80-85% median. If you really want to learn the concepts taught in class, Forlano is a great professor to take 170E with. He does a great job of breaking down the concepts in lecture for everyone, including non-math majors, went through all of the 170e curriculum (apparently one of the other 170e professors winter 2023 did not get anywhere close to finishing), and the homework generally does a good job of expanding on the concepts in class. Lectures may have been a bit dry, but he did record them via bruincast, so watching at 1.5x speed worked well, pausing when I needed to take notes. He also posted the annotated slides after the lecture which came in handy a couple of times. The homework tends to be on the theoretical side, with lots of "demonstrate X given Y" questions; some are fairly trivial, a few required a lot of calculation that I felt was unnecessarily long (extensive double sum problems anyone?) and/or required some insight, so I would definitely recommend blocking off your schedule to attend, in addition to discussions, office hours with a TA or the professor for the occasional question you get stuck on. I also heard before taking his class that homeworks are very long, but I personally didn't experience that, probably because I took heavy advantage of office hours (the TAs for my class were awesome but are graduating soon - thanks Ben Jarman for all of your support!). While the homework was not super close to the actual exams (the exams were almost all computational), I felt that it did a good job of forcing understanding of the topics needed for them if you first put in decent effort on the homework yourself before getting help. At the beginning, homeworks due friday only used concepts taught the week before it was due, but towards the end it started catching up with concepts touched on wednesday being used in the homeworks due that friday. Exams were in my opinion fair: they were very similar to the practice exams Forlano gave out (but not like copy-pasted wording) and weren't super difficult but they weren't easy either. Forlano also clearly made an effort to minimize multi-part question penalties, so almost always part B was solvable even without knowing how to do part A, and grading was also generous and fast (<7 day turnaround for all exams even with 160 students). Definitely make sure you work on a cheat sheet for the exams as you go along, as you'll need to know the different types of random variables and how to use them by the second midterm. Not specific to Forlano but just 170e in general, but definitely get used to doing basic double integrals before taking this class. It appears at the very end, and unfortunately 32a isn't a prereq/coreq but 95%+ will have taken it, so you'll be at a massive disadvantage if you don't. All in all, I would definitely take another math class with Forlano, You do not need the textbook.
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Winter 2022 - Overall, Ben is a great professor, and you can’t go wrong with him. There are a few things I will nitpick and warn future students about, however. The first several weeks of the class are very much like a high school probability/stats course or Econ 41. You learn about counting, then conditional probability and Bayes’ theorem, then discrete random variables and MGF’s until the end of week 4. After week 4, the class becomes markedly harder. You learn about continuous random variables, bivariate distributions, conditional bivariate distributions, continuous bivariate distributions, and inequalities like Chebyshev’s before finishing with the central limit theorem. I thought Ben did a great job of putting all the information about these topics out there. However, I feel like I leave this class with a lack of intuition about probability. I still lack an intuitive understanding of what a random variable is, for example, even though I kept up with the class. It felt like I was playing around with objects I didn’t fully understand, so I’m leaving this class with a little less understanding than I expected. Big warning for future students: the class is very backloaded. The final alone is worth 45% of the grade. The topics that you learn in the latter half of the class are generally harder, in my opinion, meaning that the class will be smooth sailing until the very end, where you realize it was a bad idea to put this class on the back burner for 5 weeks. I imagine Ben grades like this so that students are tested most on the new material they learn (rather than the introductory material they they may have learned in high school). Although I completely understand why he does this, it still makes the class pretty hectic toward the end.
Winter 2022 - Overall, Ben is a great professor, and you can’t go wrong with him. There are a few things I will nitpick and warn future students about, however. The first several weeks of the class are very much like a high school probability/stats course or Econ 41. You learn about counting, then conditional probability and Bayes’ theorem, then discrete random variables and MGF’s until the end of week 4. After week 4, the class becomes markedly harder. You learn about continuous random variables, bivariate distributions, conditional bivariate distributions, continuous bivariate distributions, and inequalities like Chebyshev’s before finishing with the central limit theorem. I thought Ben did a great job of putting all the information about these topics out there. However, I feel like I leave this class with a lack of intuition about probability. I still lack an intuitive understanding of what a random variable is, for example, even though I kept up with the class. It felt like I was playing around with objects I didn’t fully understand, so I’m leaving this class with a little less understanding than I expected. Big warning for future students: the class is very backloaded. The final alone is worth 45% of the grade. The topics that you learn in the latter half of the class are generally harder, in my opinion, meaning that the class will be smooth sailing until the very end, where you realize it was a bad idea to put this class on the back burner for 5 weeks. I imagine Ben grades like this so that students are tested most on the new material they learn (rather than the introductory material they they may have learned in high school). Although I completely understand why he does this, it still makes the class pretty hectic toward the end.
Most Helpful Review
Spring 2021 - COVID QTR - Overall, this was a pretty good class. The lectures were very clear and there were two projects with a bit of MATLAB/R (your choice, could even be C++) coding that were a little long but fun! The weekly homework assignments took a very long time (4-13 hours) and sometimes required me to read a few chapters of the textbook, but towards the end the professor made the workload a bit lighter. If you know calculus i.e. how to compute indefinite and double integrals, you should be completely prepared. Professor Needell and our TA Derek were very knowledgeable and approachable throughout the quarter and recorded their lectures/sections making the class logistics very convenient. Be aware that the class structure may change in the future as this was all online, but I would take another class with this professor again. This was a good class to learn probability and prepare you for any future classes that have a probability requisite.
Spring 2021 - COVID QTR - Overall, this was a pretty good class. The lectures were very clear and there were two projects with a bit of MATLAB/R (your choice, could even be C++) coding that were a little long but fun! The weekly homework assignments took a very long time (4-13 hours) and sometimes required me to read a few chapters of the textbook, but towards the end the professor made the workload a bit lighter. If you know calculus i.e. how to compute indefinite and double integrals, you should be completely prepared. Professor Needell and our TA Derek were very knowledgeable and approachable throughout the quarter and recorded their lectures/sections making the class logistics very convenient. Be aware that the class structure may change in the future as this was all online, but I would take another class with this professor again. This was a good class to learn probability and prepare you for any future classes that have a probability requisite.
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Summer 2021 - Professor Kye is a super nice guy. He's very accommodating and polite. However, his effort towards this class was super low. I don't mind him lecturing straight out of the book. If he thinks the book is the best source, then that's fine. It's his assignments/exams that bothered me. Here's a fuller breakdown: 1) Professor Kye did not collect homework. Your grade is based on three exams: two midterms and one final exam. He did send emails with problems from the book that you should do to prepare. I felt like he stopped trying with those problems as the weeks went on. I don't think he even looked at what he was assigning, as some of the problems he picked were very bizarre. In office hours, he mentioned once that he hasn't looked at the problems yet, but I suspect he never looks at them, as he is not interested in any questions from the HW but is rather there to help you with lecture material. 2) His exams are very much inspired by the textbook as well. However, for our second midterm, he gave a problem that was not covered. Five hours into the exam time period (36 hours), he sent an email telling us to skip that problem. This shows that he literally didn't even look at the exam before publishing it. I'm guessing he made the exam a while ago and just put it away until it was time to release it. This type of effort is a bit annoying, because I spent a lot of my time trying to figure that problem out before he sent his late email. 3) His final wasn't cumulative, but the problems were definitely harder than the midterm problems. Lot of the problems required old stuff you learned pre-midterm 2 anyway, so even though the final wasn't cumulative, it might as well have been. If you self study throughout the quarter and go to TA office hours, I think you will be good to go. Overall, Professor Kye is a good guy, but his class was kind of a mess. Math 170E is one of the easier math upper divs, so I think you will be alright! Good luck!
Summer 2021 - Professor Kye is a super nice guy. He's very accommodating and polite. However, his effort towards this class was super low. I don't mind him lecturing straight out of the book. If he thinks the book is the best source, then that's fine. It's his assignments/exams that bothered me. Here's a fuller breakdown: 1) Professor Kye did not collect homework. Your grade is based on three exams: two midterms and one final exam. He did send emails with problems from the book that you should do to prepare. I felt like he stopped trying with those problems as the weeks went on. I don't think he even looked at what he was assigning, as some of the problems he picked were very bizarre. In office hours, he mentioned once that he hasn't looked at the problems yet, but I suspect he never looks at them, as he is not interested in any questions from the HW but is rather there to help you with lecture material. 2) His exams are very much inspired by the textbook as well. However, for our second midterm, he gave a problem that was not covered. Five hours into the exam time period (36 hours), he sent an email telling us to skip that problem. This shows that he literally didn't even look at the exam before publishing it. I'm guessing he made the exam a while ago and just put it away until it was time to release it. This type of effort is a bit annoying, because I spent a lot of my time trying to figure that problem out before he sent his late email. 3) His final wasn't cumulative, but the problems were definitely harder than the midterm problems. Lot of the problems required old stuff you learned pre-midterm 2 anyway, so even though the final wasn't cumulative, it might as well have been. If you self study throughout the quarter and go to TA office hours, I think you will be good to go. Overall, Professor Kye is a good guy, but his class was kind of a mess. Math 170E is one of the easier math upper divs, so I think you will be alright! Good luck!
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