Honestly just take anyone else. She dipped out on the final and won’t respond to emails probably because she knew everyone was going to be mad at how it was not at all how she claimed it would be like. I still some how came out with an A or A- depending on how I did on the Final but her class overall was very poorly structured and taught. She does not prepare you at all for her tests and quizzes everything is self taught practically. TAs were really nice though.

Montoya was cool, but you definitely had to use the book (online built into Canvas) and do the homework to know what was going on. If you like to learn from the person speaking to you, you probably won't get a lot out of lectures. If you do all the work from the book before going to class, her lectures help clarify things for sure.

One thing I liked is that she was super receptive to feedback. A lot of students were complaining about things like content difficulty, and she listened and in some cases changed what she was doing.

My opinion might not be the same as other students (who didn't like her), but I did, so here's my review:

Professor Montoya cared about helping her students learn psych stats using R. She was very responsive to the student concerns, giving us deadline extensions for homework and sending out emails to clarify her grading scheme. She also discussed everything related to the test during class so we wouldn't have concerns about what would be covered. I don't understand why other students don't like her; she actually tried to help us learn. Overall, she was a nice professor.

The textbook was free, and you need to use it to succeed in this course. Disclaimer, though, I might have had an easier time in this course because I knew a little bit of coding in other languages and got a 4 on the AP Stats exam 4 years ago in high school so I still had some stuff stashed in the back of my mind.

The textbook had problems and activities integrated into it, which I liked, because that way you could use what you learned as you learned it. It was free and online on Canvas.

Extra credit: the professor offered points for participating in psych studies and for filling out the course evaluations.

Emails: responsive. People in the class were freaking out because she said she would use 2 grading schemes based on our grades on the quizzes but after a couple students emailed her she sent out a mass email saying she will use whatever scheme gives us the highest grade. She also ended up giving 2 homework extensions.

Quizzes: lowest one dropped. I got A's on the first three quizzes and a B (85, lowkey fell asleep a little bit during that one) on the fourth, so it was dropped. Cheat sheet allowed and she gives you an R cheat sheet so no need to memorize codes.

Midterm: like the quizzes. Studied by reviewing past quizzes and textbook, cheat sheet allowed, got a 95.

In class: fell asleep most of the time (it was an 8am). Poll Everywhere questions used for participation, the website is free. 2 total group activities that were collected, they were simple worksheets. Kind of fun.

Discussion sections: fridays. Every other week we had a quiz, and the ones where we didn't were review sessions. Didn't attend last 3 review sessions because the 2nd one was kinda useless. Heard some drama went down during the 3rd review sessions because TA's couldn't solve midterm problems in 1 minute but students were expected to.

As of right now I have a 95. The final is next week, so we will see what my final grade is, but with extra credit it should hopefully stay as an A.

Overall: nice class, didn't understand why people thought so negatively of her, didn't attend office hours because I didn't need to. Her overall grade dist. was higher than the other professor's section for 100A. Take it with her if you can :)

This was Prof. Montoya's first time teaching so I understood that there would be a learning curve. Even though there were mistakes on the slides and on the quizzes/midterms, she was still a very sweet professor. Someone else mentioned that it was like a student teaching other students and I definitely feel that that was true, she could be a bit awkward at times. I still think she was a pleasant lecturer who clearly knows a lot about stats, just didn't always teach it perfectly. I did progressively worse and worse on the quizzes, my lowest being a 75% and an 80% on the midterm (lowest quiz is dropped thankfully), but the final absolutely saved me. The questions were basically copied and pasted from the past quizzes/midterm and I studied those so much that I ended up acing it, plus she offered one EC point for completing the course evals. So, I would say don't be discouraged, do all of the online homework (which is only graded on completion), take good notes on the online textbook, do all of the in-class participation points with Poll Everywhere (you don't even have to be in the physical class room to get the credit), and the super simple EC assignment and you'll be fine. I think she'll only get better as she teaches more.

Please do not listen to the people who took this class in Fall 2019 and all of them got A and A+ because today is 12/24/2019 and we still did not receive any Final grade for this class. This class was very disorganized and the professor is not confident with material and quizzes are totally different from what you learned and read in this class. I spent more than 20 hours studying for this particular class and still could not get an A.

100A is pretty doable. Basically you needed to understand and apply the concepts from the textbook (free, canvas) for the assessments. There is extra credit on quizzes/tests & also you could do the SONA experiment and get an extra 1%. Two mark schemes, so if you don't want to go to class and get the participation points as long as you do well on the exams/quizzes you'll be fine. Professor Montoya is super nice, she started to give more extra credit on the quizzes and made it so we could skip two questions and generally seems to really care about her students and their grades. I would totally take her if you're good at learning on your own from reading and practice problems. I personally find that listening to her lectures just makes me super confused about the material and I do much better when I just learn from Canvas and glance through the slides she uploads to see what to focus on.

This class is basically learning to code in R and learning a little bit of stats vocab and concepts. I took stats in high school, but that was like 5 years ago, so it didn't help much. Someone with know prior knowledge of stats should be fine! I've also had no background coding, and found R to be fine. There are homework assignments online due each week, and besides the first assignment (the first 4 chapters of the book which took like 10+ hours), they usually only took about 2-3 hours which I could finish in 1-2 days, The homework is also graded on completion NOT correctness! There are 4 quizzes, one midterm, and the final. The lowest of the 4 quizzes is dropped, but the quizzes aren't too bad, you take them in the discussion section. The lowest grade I got on them was a 95, and I only went over the homework as my studying for like an hour and made my cheat sheet the night before each quiz (yes you get a one page cheat sheet for every quiz/test. Amanda is very clear and helpful and really wants her students to succeed! Some people were really demanding and rude it felt like, but she took it like a champ and kept calm. She offered a lot of extra credit and changed the ways quizzes were to accommodate concerns of students. There's also easy participation and poll everywhere points, just show up to class. Overall, if you can put the 3-4 hours a work a week for the homework+studying for quiz, this class is an easy A with Montoya! (Bonus: you don't have to buy anything for the class since she uses a free online textbook in Canvas and poll everywhere instead of iClickers)

Professor Montoya really loves what she teaches and it's obvious. However, she often speeds through lecture but always takes questions. Showing up to lectures is important (if you want the extra grade boost at the end of the quarter). The TA's always have office hours which help a lot. There are long notebook chapters due every week which took me a couple of hours just to complete. After, there are quizzes for each chapter (12 questions), they are open notes but it's still a little difficult to get 12/12. I got a 12/19 on the midterm but managed to pass the class with an A- without taking the OPTIONAL final exam. There is a group project for the final which honestly is a little tedious because you have to rely on others, but I would prefer that than a mandatory final. The worst part of the course is the discussion sections every Friday. Other than that, Professor Montoya is a good professor, I do not understand the negative reviews about her.

Your perspective on this class will probably be influence by your major

Psychobiology - this wlll probably be one of your easier pre req classes. The coding in LS30A is harder than what you do with R in Psych. 100A.

Cog Sci - probably going to be one of your easier pre req classes. The difficulty of PIC or CS classes does not compare to what you do with R in this class, not even close.

Psych - probably going to be one of your tougher pre req classes if you are not specializing in computing.

I am only the third person reviewing Montoya and I am surprised to see the low reviews for her. I’m not sure my grade yet, but I do think that Amanda was a really great professor. I am by no means the smartest student or amazing at stats. On bruinwalk, I usually look for the reviews from the B and C students because Ive been really struggling in my classes at UCLA.
However, I was really happy with this professor.
These are the reasons I liked her:
-She was extremely knowledgeable about the material
-She was very welcoming to students in office hours
-She is really helpful one on one and in small group settings.
-She encouraged us to ask questions,
-She never came off impatient or annoyed. It’s evident she cares about her students
-She was energetic
-She uses slides which she would post online before.(She does take attendance in lecture thru poll everywhere, but the slides are still very helpful)
-She is very open to feedback,.
-She uses a thing called ask for me where you can submit questions anonymously totheTAs and they will ask them during lecture to the professor. I absolutely loved this.
-You get a CHEAT SHEET for EVERY SINGLE QUIZ, MDTERM, and FINAL. It is written on a regular piece of paper one sided. You will also get an additional cheat sheet of R codes given by the professor, so you don’t need to memorize codes.

Anyways, you do have weekly homework which is reading in an interactive textbook. I did like this though because it will force you to stay caught up in the class and it’s based on completion so it definitely helps your grade. You get a week to do it, you just cannot hold it off until the hours before it’s due because you will not finish and that would not help your understanding anyways. I usually would break it up by sections over a couple days, it’s reallynot daunting at all.

There were quizzes in discussion every other two weeks. I never did that great on these, but I changed how I studied for the final and I did the best I had on a test in the class. So I do think my poor quiz scores lied in my inefficient studying. I should’ve used notes from the professors slides on my cheat sheet more than my own notes.

BE GRATEUL FOR HW and POLL EVERYWERE questions.. they are both based on completion and easy points that will help your grade.

DONT BE SCARED OF R, it’s not that bad at all and I suck at programming

Go to her office hours. Hardly anyone is there and she is really helpful. It helps to explain he concepts you learn in this class out loud and discuss them.

This class will also definitely enhance your LinkedIn and resume. R is one of the most desired skills in employees for jobs right now and after taking this class you will get to put several skills on your resume relating to R which will give you an edge in internships and jobs.

The class covered a lot of concepts in stats 10 except instead of doing the math by hand you are using R. You are learning a lot more about the meaning behind your calculations s opposed to learning to find the calculations themselves.

Yes, concepts can be difficult but you are not being set up to fail. This class if fair. I do recommend this professor

Even though I got a good grade in this class, I wouldn't recommend taking it with her unless you had to. The homework was a lot each week, and most of the time didn't really relate to what she was lecturing in. In addition, the quizzes were worded really bad. During the weeks that we had quizzes, she'd cover material that wasn't going to be on it the day before, which sucked because I never wanted to listen since it would only confuse me, and thus would put me behind. I did okay on the quizzes but studied a lot for the final and ended up doing really well on it, which is why I got an A in the class. If you go to her office hours she can be helpful, but her explanations of things is always a lot more complicated than it needs to be. This being said, this was only her second quarter teaching this class, and I'm sure she'll get a lot better as time goes on!