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Akram Almohalwas
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Based on 156 Users
This class was a mess. Tests were fair, labs weren't too bad (TAs generally gave us the R script we needed), and he dropped the lowest quiz and lab grades, which helped. However, his lectures were all over the place, and he would go off on random tangents and rants. He even threw in a fairly inappropriate joke before we took our final. Overall, the class was pretty easy, but if I had any enjoyment of statistics before the class, it is now long gone.
I took him for Stats 101B and Stats 101C, and honestly, I don't think he's that bad. He is definitely an unclear lecturer, but supplies an abundance of slides (which lack adequate information), so you know what to study (I looked in the textbooks to solidify my understanding of the material). He is unresponsive, but TAs can usually answer most of your questions about homeworks and projects. For 101C, we had a midterm (in-person, VERY fair), a final (take-home, easy), and a group project on Kaggle where teams were ranked by performance (we were around 13/32 and got an A+, so I don't think grading was very harsh). We also had 6 homeworks, which varied in difficulty (all on R). At the end of the day, his tests are pretty easy, his projects are graded nicely, and he cares about his students doing well in his class. Although he is a bad lecturer, don't be afraid to take him!
So disorganized, which made everything confusing for students. Useless class, honestly it was a lot of waffling/blabbering. I feel like it is very extra and not needed. Skip if you can.
If you've taken AP Statistics before then this is a breeze. We only covered one prop, one mean, two prop, two mean, chi-square, and linear regression in this class which made things a lot simpler than AP Stat. The labs do involve R which was pretty daunting to me as someone who's never coded before, but we basically just copied the code from the TA during lab. Therefore, the labs were very easy as long as you type fast enough to keep up with the TA's code in the lab section. The mean for the Winter 2023 final was 86% after the professor curved it, which is relatively high compared to other classes. The professor is a little hard to understand and he does go on tangents often, but the content is fairly easy so that wasn't a problem
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
This class was a mess. Tests were fair, labs weren't too bad (TAs generally gave us the R script we needed), and he dropped the lowest quiz and lab grades, which helped. However, his lectures were all over the place, and he would go off on random tangents and rants. He even threw in a fairly inappropriate joke before we took our final. Overall, the class was pretty easy, but if I had any enjoyment of statistics before the class, it is now long gone.
I took him for Stats 101B and Stats 101C, and honestly, I don't think he's that bad. He is definitely an unclear lecturer, but supplies an abundance of slides (which lack adequate information), so you know what to study (I looked in the textbooks to solidify my understanding of the material). He is unresponsive, but TAs can usually answer most of your questions about homeworks and projects. For 101C, we had a midterm (in-person, VERY fair), a final (take-home, easy), and a group project on Kaggle where teams were ranked by performance (we were around 13/32 and got an A+, so I don't think grading was very harsh). We also had 6 homeworks, which varied in difficulty (all on R). At the end of the day, his tests are pretty easy, his projects are graded nicely, and he cares about his students doing well in his class. Although he is a bad lecturer, don't be afraid to take him!
If you've taken AP Statistics before then this is a breeze. We only covered one prop, one mean, two prop, two mean, chi-square, and linear regression in this class which made things a lot simpler than AP Stat. The labs do involve R which was pretty daunting to me as someone who's never coded before, but we basically just copied the code from the TA during lab. Therefore, the labs were very easy as long as you type fast enough to keep up with the TA's code in the lab section. The mean for the Winter 2023 final was 86% after the professor curved it, which is relatively high compared to other classes. The professor is a little hard to understand and he does go on tangents often, but the content is fairly easy so that wasn't a problem
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