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Akram Almohalwas
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Almohalwas is a horrible professor. The class and material itself is easy and I did not try very hard. But he is a terrible lecturer and often makes students even more confused by his explanation after someone asks a question. If you can, take this class with someone else who will actually teach you statistics.
Professor Almohalwas is such a great guy, very nice, and willing to help students succeed. I do agree with other reviews that the class was a bit disorganized and his lectures didn't have much structure. Labs are useless, they don't help you learn since most students just tried submitting the code rather than do it. The discussion section is useful and you should go since it is good practice. One thing about professor Almohalwas is that he really knows how to lecture/explain things so you can understand, but all the reviews say otherwise cuz his lectures got boring sometimes and were disorganized at times, so you have to be alert the whole time. Also, he didn't record his lectures so you have to be even more alert. The way to succeed in this class is to take active lecture notes(try your best not to sleep for this part of the day) as he speaks then go back to the slides later and review anything you missed(it sounds like a lot but trust me, this helped a lot for retaining information), do the discussion activities and make sure you review the answers, review the quizzes, go to his office hours(he clears so much confusion about topics you are confused about), and DO THE PRACTICE PROBLEMS HE GIVES FOR EACH CHAPTER CUZ HE PULLS MANY OF THESE QUESTIONS FOR MIDTERMS AND FINALS(this was something not many people did and I did which gave me the edge over many students). You must start the practice problems a week and a half before the midterm since it is a lot so you have time to finish and review it. The reason many people hate this class was cuz there wasn't enough practice that they did, and the chapter book problems he provides are helpful in studying. Most answers are in the pdf but you can just search them up too. Overall, he gets hate when he doesn't deserve it and should have some improvements in the class, but you definitely need to try in this class to get an A.
Overall just bad. His lectures are boring, unengaging, and he rambles so much you don't know what he even talks about. His lecture style is slides and just talks about it. You're never sure when to write notes because his lectures are just all slides with words about experiments. I went to class every single time and honestly worst decision of my life.
Discussions are alright definitely go to those. They give you the answers to lab which are dumb because you don't learn anything from them because you're just worried about getting the code to submit the lab. Which you will spend a ridiculous amount of time doing. You do learn more from TAs than the professor like every single class at UCLA.
Midterm and Final are definitely fair if you taught yourself the material
Almo is my favorite professor that I have taken here (and the stats dept has some excellent professors). He is a bit disorganized, but his lectures are excellent and engaging. He is very approachable outside of class and very nice during office hours. The final project was very interesting and a lot of fun to do. The midterm and final were quite fair, and tested your understanding of the material instead of focusing on pointless calculations. Overall 10/10
Almohalwas is, overall, a kind and understanding professor. He clearly cares about his students and was interested in making sure we understood the material; in class, he answered every question asked and I've heard that his office hours were good too (i never went lol). In terms of tests, they weren't easy, but they were fair. Everything covered was basically taken right out of the book. The formula sheet is pretty disorganized, so definitely do a lot of practice problems and get familiar with the formulas you need to know. For discussions and labs: GO TO DISCUSSION SECTION. My TA basically gave us the answers and explained the concepts. When the TAs went on strike halfway through the quarter I was pretty much lost without their help on these assignments.
My biggest problem with this class and the professor was the lectures. They were disorganized and pretty boring, with unhelpful slides and a lot of rambling on Almohalwas's part. Honestly, I think that attending the lectures was a waste of my time and would have been better spent learning the concepts on my own time.
He also drops the lowest lab, lowest discussion assignment, and gives an extra credit lab, so there's a bit of wiggle room! Overall a fine class, j make sure to keep up with the material and do a lot of problems.
This professor is a very kind and reasonable person and was very helpful when it was needed. However, his slides are VERY hard to follow along with and he ends up rambling the entire lecture so I stopped going to lectures after midterms and did not think I was missing anything. The labs for this class are very tedious and not enough background information was given when we began to use R studio, it was as if they expected me to know how to already do it when it was my first time using it. The labs are VERY long and repetitive and discussion sections did not coincide with lectures at all. The midterm calculation questions were quite challenging. I just wish the professor was more organized because it was very hard to understand when he rambles about random things every few minutes.
I'm going to be really honest, I didn't pay attention in his class at all. And as someone who sat in the back of the lecture hall, I can say that about 70% of the class didn't either. He makes little sense in lecture, and as someone who took AP Stats in high school, I know for a fact there's an easier way to teach Stats than the way he does. He makes simple things seem so complicated!
That being said, he is a very nice man. He seems very genuine, and while I'm sure he knows his stuff, he just doesn't seem to be good at teaching it.
The great thing though is that the material is easy as pie. The textbook was great; right before the midterms I would just sit for an hour and read the assigned chapters, do his "suggested" homework problems and additional practice ?'s, and I got A's on both midterms.
Granted this may be because I already knew the material from high school, but two of my friends who had no knowledge of Stats did as I did, and also walked out with an A in the class.
Also to the people below me complaining about the "workload", it wasn't much at all. Just a short lab report a week that you could literally finish in about an hour, and one online quiz a week that takes about 15 minutes.
He is the nicest professor on campus. He has a genuine concern for his students and does anything to help. He is always available and replies promptly to emails. The homework isn't easy and is graded on the hard side. However, his tests are straightforward. On his lecture notes if it says SIMILAR EXAM QUESTION, focus on those topics. Great professor. Hope to take him again.
the class was too tedious for its own good. you become jaded and bored as the class progresses so slowly throughout the entire quarter. meanwhile, amid performing repetitive busy work (homework, lab quiz on repeat, not to mention 2 lab exams, 2 midterms, and a ridiculously long final). Professor almohalwas seems to believe that the more problems we cover and the more slides he posts mean he is providing a better education. however, from the questions you hear other students reading in class, it becomes quite apparent that it's all too much material about too little substance being presented at too quick a pace for many students to fully grasp. almohalwas would benefit from focusing on a single example and making absolutely clear each and every step that he is taking once, twice, three times. before moving onto the next problem. the material itself is not very hard. the final however is cumulative and the exam covers pretty much everything, making the final exam both long and a huge pain the ass. by the end of the exam i was so tired of the class that i didn't bother to double check any of my work. summer was waiting
The class wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be. All I can really say is that discussion sections and the textbook are important. You get lab and discussion worksheet answers during the discussion sections so make sure you go. The midterms were pretty straightforward and similar to the homework problems he provides.
Almohalwas is a horrible professor. The class and material itself is easy and I did not try very hard. But he is a terrible lecturer and often makes students even more confused by his explanation after someone asks a question. If you can, take this class with someone else who will actually teach you statistics.
Professor Almohalwas is such a great guy, very nice, and willing to help students succeed. I do agree with other reviews that the class was a bit disorganized and his lectures didn't have much structure. Labs are useless, they don't help you learn since most students just tried submitting the code rather than do it. The discussion section is useful and you should go since it is good practice. One thing about professor Almohalwas is that he really knows how to lecture/explain things so you can understand, but all the reviews say otherwise cuz his lectures got boring sometimes and were disorganized at times, so you have to be alert the whole time. Also, he didn't record his lectures so you have to be even more alert. The way to succeed in this class is to take active lecture notes(try your best not to sleep for this part of the day) as he speaks then go back to the slides later and review anything you missed(it sounds like a lot but trust me, this helped a lot for retaining information), do the discussion activities and make sure you review the answers, review the quizzes, go to his office hours(he clears so much confusion about topics you are confused about), and DO THE PRACTICE PROBLEMS HE GIVES FOR EACH CHAPTER CUZ HE PULLS MANY OF THESE QUESTIONS FOR MIDTERMS AND FINALS(this was something not many people did and I did which gave me the edge over many students). You must start the practice problems a week and a half before the midterm since it is a lot so you have time to finish and review it. The reason many people hate this class was cuz there wasn't enough practice that they did, and the chapter book problems he provides are helpful in studying. Most answers are in the pdf but you can just search them up too. Overall, he gets hate when he doesn't deserve it and should have some improvements in the class, but you definitely need to try in this class to get an A.
Overall just bad. His lectures are boring, unengaging, and he rambles so much you don't know what he even talks about. His lecture style is slides and just talks about it. You're never sure when to write notes because his lectures are just all slides with words about experiments. I went to class every single time and honestly worst decision of my life.
Discussions are alright definitely go to those. They give you the answers to lab which are dumb because you don't learn anything from them because you're just worried about getting the code to submit the lab. Which you will spend a ridiculous amount of time doing. You do learn more from TAs than the professor like every single class at UCLA.
Midterm and Final are definitely fair if you taught yourself the material
Almo is my favorite professor that I have taken here (and the stats dept has some excellent professors). He is a bit disorganized, but his lectures are excellent and engaging. He is very approachable outside of class and very nice during office hours. The final project was very interesting and a lot of fun to do. The midterm and final were quite fair, and tested your understanding of the material instead of focusing on pointless calculations. Overall 10/10
Almohalwas is, overall, a kind and understanding professor. He clearly cares about his students and was interested in making sure we understood the material; in class, he answered every question asked and I've heard that his office hours were good too (i never went lol). In terms of tests, they weren't easy, but they were fair. Everything covered was basically taken right out of the book. The formula sheet is pretty disorganized, so definitely do a lot of practice problems and get familiar with the formulas you need to know. For discussions and labs: GO TO DISCUSSION SECTION. My TA basically gave us the answers and explained the concepts. When the TAs went on strike halfway through the quarter I was pretty much lost without their help on these assignments.
My biggest problem with this class and the professor was the lectures. They were disorganized and pretty boring, with unhelpful slides and a lot of rambling on Almohalwas's part. Honestly, I think that attending the lectures was a waste of my time and would have been better spent learning the concepts on my own time.
He also drops the lowest lab, lowest discussion assignment, and gives an extra credit lab, so there's a bit of wiggle room! Overall a fine class, j make sure to keep up with the material and do a lot of problems.
This professor is a very kind and reasonable person and was very helpful when it was needed. However, his slides are VERY hard to follow along with and he ends up rambling the entire lecture so I stopped going to lectures after midterms and did not think I was missing anything. The labs for this class are very tedious and not enough background information was given when we began to use R studio, it was as if they expected me to know how to already do it when it was my first time using it. The labs are VERY long and repetitive and discussion sections did not coincide with lectures at all. The midterm calculation questions were quite challenging. I just wish the professor was more organized because it was very hard to understand when he rambles about random things every few minutes.
I'm going to be really honest, I didn't pay attention in his class at all. And as someone who sat in the back of the lecture hall, I can say that about 70% of the class didn't either. He makes little sense in lecture, and as someone who took AP Stats in high school, I know for a fact there's an easier way to teach Stats than the way he does. He makes simple things seem so complicated!
That being said, he is a very nice man. He seems very genuine, and while I'm sure he knows his stuff, he just doesn't seem to be good at teaching it.
The great thing though is that the material is easy as pie. The textbook was great; right before the midterms I would just sit for an hour and read the assigned chapters, do his "suggested" homework problems and additional practice ?'s, and I got A's on both midterms.
Granted this may be because I already knew the material from high school, but two of my friends who had no knowledge of Stats did as I did, and also walked out with an A in the class.
Also to the people below me complaining about the "workload", it wasn't much at all. Just a short lab report a week that you could literally finish in about an hour, and one online quiz a week that takes about 15 minutes.
He is the nicest professor on campus. He has a genuine concern for his students and does anything to help. He is always available and replies promptly to emails. The homework isn't easy and is graded on the hard side. However, his tests are straightforward. On his lecture notes if it says SIMILAR EXAM QUESTION, focus on those topics. Great professor. Hope to take him again.
the class was too tedious for its own good. you become jaded and bored as the class progresses so slowly throughout the entire quarter. meanwhile, amid performing repetitive busy work (homework, lab quiz on repeat, not to mention 2 lab exams, 2 midterms, and a ridiculously long final). Professor almohalwas seems to believe that the more problems we cover and the more slides he posts mean he is providing a better education. however, from the questions you hear other students reading in class, it becomes quite apparent that it's all too much material about too little substance being presented at too quick a pace for many students to fully grasp. almohalwas would benefit from focusing on a single example and making absolutely clear each and every step that he is taking once, twice, three times. before moving onto the next problem. the material itself is not very hard. the final however is cumulative and the exam covers pretty much everything, making the final exam both long and a huge pain the ass. by the end of the exam i was so tired of the class that i didn't bother to double check any of my work. summer was waiting
The class wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be. All I can really say is that discussion sections and the textbook are important. You get lab and discussion worksheet answers during the discussion sections so make sure you go. The midterms were pretty straightforward and similar to the homework problems he provides.