I feel like I could still use the stuff I learned in this class. Textbook was online / free. I know he didn’t write the textbook he works with it? It’s a good book, and it feels more like he is helping you learn instead of teaching

Fun class from a very hot prof (idk how much I can say before this gets marked “inappropriate” but... yeah)

When Professor Blake emphasized in the syllabus and the first lecture that this class was not going to be easy, he was right. Lots of homework and reading, and was definitely fast-paced and very intense since I took the class in the summer. However, Professor Blake was super kind and empathetic throughout the whole session, and made the material as digestible and manageable as possible to go through. As someone who has never touched or learned how to code in R before, Professor Blake and the textbook he provided were very thorough and reasonable, albeit can be a little tough if you find yourself falling behind. He also added about 2%-3% of extra credit to our final grades at the end of the course, drops your lowest quiz score, and provides a cheat sheet for you to use during quizzes and exams (though it's just easier if you don't use the cheat sheet). Overall, a very good teacher with a very fair grading scheme and class structure.

I took Dr. Blake over SSA 2020 and he was amazing. This definitely isn't the best class to take over summer, since it is full of a lot of information but Blake definitely made it doable. As long as you stay caught up and don't fall behind (doing a little bit of the online homework every day rather than all in one night) you should be okay. As a heads up, the homework is due the night before the class on that chapter at 11:30 pm. Dr. Blake automatically gives you two grading scale options on the syllabus and he will do whatever one boosts your grade higher, he also included 3% of extra credit that is added to your total grade at the end of the course. He also drops your lowest quiz score and gives you a cheat sheet to use on the quizzes and the final that has a lot of the code that is on them.
Grading Schemes
1) 10% Homework / 10% Participation / 30% Quizzes / 50% Final
2) 10% Homework / 10% Participation / 50% Quizzes / 30% Final
Overall a very helpful and amazing professor, probably even better during a regular full quarter.

I absolutely loved Professor Blake as an instructor and just as a person overall. This class was definitely more intense than I expected (six weeks is a lot shorter than you would think) but he managed to make it feel manageable, and the online textbook his team has designed for this class is truly fantastic. I took AP Stats in hs and felt like I learned nothing, yet somehow in only 6 weeks this course managed to clear up all of the topics and ideas I never understood before. Also, as someone who has never coded before in their lives, the R coding was very manageable. We had Brittany Drake as a TA and she was also fantastic; truly such a kind and supportive person. I struggled with finishing the last two quizzes on time, but still managed to pull off an A plus in the class so don't worry if you struggle with them. Adam also offers extra credit and both he and the Brittany were great about offering office hours for extra help. Overall, I would highly recommend this class, especially to people who might have struggled with stats in the past like myself!!

Professor Blake was a wonderful professor for Psych100A. I had no idea what the class was about or what to expect, but he made everything very clear and understandable.

Prof. Blake isn't just super nice and accommodating, he's also really, really good at teaching. He uses a new platform called Jupyter Notebooks (they allow you to practice coding in R directly) to teach the class and it's so helpful! Even though the classes are like two hours long he makes it all worthwhile. From someone who really doesn't know what they're doing, this class was a great experience. It was fun, the workload was INSANELY reasonable, and I learned a lot.

Our grades were made up of quizzes, homework, participation, and the final. Homework was just doing exercises in the online textbook (which was necessary if you wanted to understand, so honestly it wasn't bad at all-- took like 4 hours each week) and it was worth 10% of our grade. Participation was also worth 10%, and to be more accommodating Prof. Blake made it so that only Tuesday lectures would be graded. He had a really interesting method for participation, which I wasn't really a fan of but I have to admit it really worked (basically, be prepared to possibly be called on!! But don't be afraid, because as someone with serious fears regarding public speaking, he did a great job of never making anyone feel embarrassed about their answer).

Quizzes and the final could be worth 30% and 50%, or you could switch them and make it 50% and 30%, whichever you get the highest grade with. Quizzes were super easy and fair, and he drops the lowest one, AND almost all of them had bonus questions. The final was very straightforward as well. Literally all you had to do was pay attention to the homework exercises and pay attention in class (which you have to do anyways, because you might be called on!).

He has multiple extra credit opportunities and is very kind. I highly, highly recommend taking this course with Professor Blake.