MATH 70
Introduction to Probability
Description: Lecture, three hours; discussion, one hour. Requisites: courses 31A, 31B. Introduction to probability through applications and examples. Topics include laws of large numbers, statistics, chance trees, conditional probability, Bayes' rule, continuous and discrete random variables, jointly distributed random variables, multivariate normal and conditional distributions. In-depth discussion of betting schemes in gambling, occurrence of rare events, coincidences, and statistical predictions. P/NP or letter grading.
Units: 4.0
Units: 4.0
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Most Helpful Review
Fall 2025 - Do not take Math 70 with professor Butson. His exams are simple, but his personality, as well as his teaching methodology was very undesirable. His constant condescending attitude towards students when prompted questions or comments is absurd and his tardiness and lack of care, in general, should be enough to worry if your tuition money is going into a worthwhile class. The topics covered in this class, given a standard/beginner background in calculus or probability, should be simple and quite interesting, to be frank, so if there are other math professors to choose from, I would avoid the headache that comes with taking Butson. He would describe himself as a 'sarcastic' person but I'm sure he just says that to make an excuse for whatever backhanded comment he makes to the class. Also, he curves by percentage, so there is a chance that you may be curved downward, even if you score well in his exams.
Fall 2025 - Do not take Math 70 with professor Butson. His exams are simple, but his personality, as well as his teaching methodology was very undesirable. His constant condescending attitude towards students when prompted questions or comments is absurd and his tardiness and lack of care, in general, should be enough to worry if your tuition money is going into a worthwhile class. The topics covered in this class, given a standard/beginner background in calculus or probability, should be simple and quite interesting, to be frank, so if there are other math professors to choose from, I would avoid the headache that comes with taking Butson. He would describe himself as a 'sarcastic' person but I'm sure he just says that to make an excuse for whatever backhanded comment he makes to the class. Also, he curves by percentage, so there is a chance that you may be curved downward, even if you score well in his exams.
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Most Helpful Review
Fall 2023 - Collins Odhiambo is unfit for a classroom. He has issues communicating clearly and struggles to comprehend and answer basic questions posed by students. He and his TA do not communicate well so there are often discrepancies that hinder the learning experience as a student. I quickly realized his lectures were not worth attending and that missing lectures does not set you behind at all because the actual math is easy enough to learn when doing homework. Odhiambo's other big issue is that he frequently creates problems with errors on the homework and the quizzes, which will trip you up and waste time. There were easily 3-4 errors per quiz, for which you would have to wait for them to be corrected. The grade is comprised as such: Homework (20%): Homeworks were somewhat long with sometimes upwards of 6 multi-part questions but for the most part not too bad. In my opinion, Odhiambo did have too many homework assignments, at a total of 9. This meant that there were homework assignments due at the end of Thanksgiving break and at the end of week 10, right before finals. These homework assignments frequently contained subject matter not taught in the course and the TA had to step in on the first assignment to get Odhiambo to change the content. Homework was graded for accuracy on each problem so it was easy to miss points on each problem. Lowest homework dropped. Quizzes (20%): The quizzes were much easier than the homework. You also had two guesses so you could pretty much guarantee full credit each time. The main problem with the quizzes was the numerous errors per quiz, but the TA would tell you the answer if you explained the problem to him. Lowest quiz dropped. Midterm (30%): The midterm was completely online and asynchronous during a 24 hour period. It was not difficult and because it was open book and open note, the questions were easy to answer. I believe close to 50% of the class got the full 100/100. Final (30%): Closed-note and in person. The final ended up being pretty easy but he did make us memorize the derivation of 7 means for the final. He offered 0.5% extra credit but put it in as 0.5/0.5 so everyone's grade increased by ~0.02% instead of 0.5% and refused to change it when asked about it. While this class is by no means difficult to earn an A in, I would advise against it as your knowledge of statistics and probability will not really grow and your learning experience with Odhiambo will be unpleasant.
Fall 2023 - Collins Odhiambo is unfit for a classroom. He has issues communicating clearly and struggles to comprehend and answer basic questions posed by students. He and his TA do not communicate well so there are often discrepancies that hinder the learning experience as a student. I quickly realized his lectures were not worth attending and that missing lectures does not set you behind at all because the actual math is easy enough to learn when doing homework. Odhiambo's other big issue is that he frequently creates problems with errors on the homework and the quizzes, which will trip you up and waste time. There were easily 3-4 errors per quiz, for which you would have to wait for them to be corrected. The grade is comprised as such: Homework (20%): Homeworks were somewhat long with sometimes upwards of 6 multi-part questions but for the most part not too bad. In my opinion, Odhiambo did have too many homework assignments, at a total of 9. This meant that there were homework assignments due at the end of Thanksgiving break and at the end of week 10, right before finals. These homework assignments frequently contained subject matter not taught in the course and the TA had to step in on the first assignment to get Odhiambo to change the content. Homework was graded for accuracy on each problem so it was easy to miss points on each problem. Lowest homework dropped. Quizzes (20%): The quizzes were much easier than the homework. You also had two guesses so you could pretty much guarantee full credit each time. The main problem with the quizzes was the numerous errors per quiz, but the TA would tell you the answer if you explained the problem to him. Lowest quiz dropped. Midterm (30%): The midterm was completely online and asynchronous during a 24 hour period. It was not difficult and because it was open book and open note, the questions were easy to answer. I believe close to 50% of the class got the full 100/100. Final (30%): Closed-note and in person. The final ended up being pretty easy but he did make us memorize the derivation of 7 means for the final. He offered 0.5% extra credit but put it in as 0.5/0.5 so everyone's grade increased by ~0.02% instead of 0.5% and refused to change it when asked about it. While this class is by no means difficult to earn an A in, I would advise against it as your knowledge of statistics and probability will not really grow and your learning experience with Odhiambo will be unpleasant.
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