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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Winter 2024 - Way harder than other professors. He distributes the grades so that about 1/3 of the class gets 'A's, 1/3 gets 'B's, and 1/3 gets 'C's. His tests are harder than other professors and he covers a lot more material. He makes a lot of mistakes on the board and his lectures are very hard to follow. He assigns homework due Friday and he finishes teaching the relevant material on Wednesday (so you only have two days to do that HW and it takes a lot of time). I would try to take this class with someone else.
Winter 2024 - Way harder than other professors. He distributes the grades so that about 1/3 of the class gets 'A's, 1/3 gets 'B's, and 1/3 gets 'C's. His tests are harder than other professors and he covers a lot more material. He makes a lot of mistakes on the board and his lectures are very hard to follow. He assigns homework due Friday and he finishes teaching the relevant material on Wednesday (so you only have two days to do that HW and it takes a lot of time). I would try to take this class with someone else.
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Fall 2020 - Overall, this class wasn't bad. Professor Nam is a fairly good lecturer and always seeks to answer his student's questions. However, I don't think he provides good enough examples for concepts; rather, the examples he gives in class are pretty elementary and doesn't prepare us for more difficult questions. The textbook is pretty shitty too in my opinion. The midterms were easy but the final was very very hard. I wouldn't count on the midterms for his class to be easy in the future as it seems he made the final extra hard to offset the good grades we got from the midterms. Also, he didn't curve grades in the end despite very low scores on the final. Make sure to try to get 100% on every homework as that category is a large part of your grade and every point counts! Course Breakdown: Homework - 30% Midterm 1 - 20% Midterm 2 - 20% Final - 30% Exam Medians: Midterm 1 - 96% Midterm 2 - 95% Final - 66%
Fall 2020 - Overall, this class wasn't bad. Professor Nam is a fairly good lecturer and always seeks to answer his student's questions. However, I don't think he provides good enough examples for concepts; rather, the examples he gives in class are pretty elementary and doesn't prepare us for more difficult questions. The textbook is pretty shitty too in my opinion. The midterms were easy but the final was very very hard. I wouldn't count on the midterms for his class to be easy in the future as it seems he made the final extra hard to offset the good grades we got from the midterms. Also, he didn't curve grades in the end despite very low scores on the final. Make sure to try to get 100% on every homework as that category is a large part of your grade and every point counts! Course Breakdown: Homework - 30% Midterm 1 - 20% Midterm 2 - 20% Final - 30% Exam Medians: Midterm 1 - 96% Midterm 2 - 95% Final - 66%
Most Helpful Review
Spring 2024 - Combinatorics does not come naturally to me and I found even the basics confusing. Things eventually clicked in how to recognize certain simpler distributions for the homework problems, but Professor Needell wasn't particularly helpful in this. I did not learn much in class, and I had to watch learn via looking up solutions. I have no idea how to recognize or the real world applications of half of the distributions we learned about (ex. Gamma, Chi-Square), which is disappointing since I know they are used quite extensively in multiple fields of study. There was a tedious-amount of homework, which I guess were helpful in tackling exam problems, since I did not learn much from lectures. I can't speak to how helpful she is outside of class (because I never figured out her office hours sign up). Her first two exams were relatively-easy in regard to the content we were learning, but the final was very hard. I was saved by the fact that it was multiple-choice and made very good educated guesses. In summary, I think that there must be better 170E professors than Needell, since I didn't learn much directly from her, but I don't think this class is necessarily that difficult.
Spring 2024 - Combinatorics does not come naturally to me and I found even the basics confusing. Things eventually clicked in how to recognize certain simpler distributions for the homework problems, but Professor Needell wasn't particularly helpful in this. I did not learn much in class, and I had to watch learn via looking up solutions. I have no idea how to recognize or the real world applications of half of the distributions we learned about (ex. Gamma, Chi-Square), which is disappointing since I know they are used quite extensively in multiple fields of study. There was a tedious-amount of homework, which I guess were helpful in tackling exam problems, since I did not learn much from lectures. I can't speak to how helpful she is outside of class (because I never figured out her office hours sign up). Her first two exams were relatively-easy in regard to the content we were learning, but the final was very hard. I was saved by the fact that it was multiple-choice and made very good educated guesses. In summary, I think that there must be better 170E professors than Needell, since I didn't learn much directly from her, but I don't think this class is necessarily that difficult.
Most Helpful Review
Spring 2021 - Maybe I'm the stupid one in the class as everyone in the class gets like As on their tests. Not the best lecturer, but also not the worse. The test are extremely long and definitely not 3 hours for the finals. The class is not curved so keep that in mind (45% midterm, 25% hw, 35% finals). I just pnp the class cuz I know I will not learn anything from the class. Take it with another professor if you can.
Spring 2021 - Maybe I'm the stupid one in the class as everyone in the class gets like As on their tests. Not the best lecturer, but also not the worse. The test are extremely long and definitely not 3 hours for the finals. The class is not curved so keep that in mind (45% midterm, 25% hw, 35% finals). I just pnp the class cuz I know I will not learn anything from the class. Take it with another professor if you can.
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Summer 2020 - Overall, this class was fun to take and Professor Ozel is very understanding and accommodating of current circumstances. I was doing well in the class until the final, which I think is partially my fault. As another poster mentioned, there are weekly quizzes, 5 in total, and the lowest 2 are dropped. The midterm was a little tougher than the quizzes, but the average was very high, and I don't know if he overcorrected for the final but I found it brutal, but that could be because I lost all motivation towards the end of the quarter. If you stay on top of your stuff, it's a very doable class.
Summer 2020 - Overall, this class was fun to take and Professor Ozel is very understanding and accommodating of current circumstances. I was doing well in the class until the final, which I think is partially my fault. As another poster mentioned, there are weekly quizzes, 5 in total, and the lowest 2 are dropped. The midterm was a little tougher than the quizzes, but the average was very high, and I don't know if he overcorrected for the final but I found it brutal, but that could be because I lost all motivation towards the end of the quarter. If you stay on top of your stuff, it's a very doable class.
Most Helpful Review
Winter 2022 - Professor Pedchenko is my favorite professor at UCLA so far. He gives really clear lectures and none of them are boring. He really cares about students, often listening to student feedback via an anonymous survey that he checks every week. He also provides concise lecture notes after every class, uploading them to Canvas. His homeworks are also very fair and if you have trouble he will go over it with you during office hours. All in all I would recommend Pedchenko!!
Winter 2022 - Professor Pedchenko is my favorite professor at UCLA so far. He gives really clear lectures and none of them are boring. He really cares about students, often listening to student feedback via an anonymous survey that he checks every week. He also provides concise lecture notes after every class, uploading them to Canvas. His homeworks are also very fair and if you have trouble he will go over it with you during office hours. All in all I would recommend Pedchenko!!
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