Professor Paik Shoenberg is a nice guy, but a terrible, lazy professor.

He reads straight from his slides.

His slides? ARE HIS BOOK COPIED AND PASTED ONTO THE SLIDES. It is a wall of text with no spacing between equations and he skips many algebraic steps. They are hard to read and hard to follow. Plus he already has them prepared so he goes through them too fast for you to write them down. You should either print them ahead of time or use a tablet.
His book? Some equations are written WITHIN paragraphs which make it very hard to read. Many variables are undefined making his logic hard to follow as well. There are no additional explanations in his book that supplement the material that he goes over in class because - I repeat - HIS SLIDES ARE HIS BOOK.

His exams? 14 multiple choice questions in 1 hour and 15 minutes. It doesn't sound too bad until you make one algebraic or mathematical mistake and then 10 minutes of working out the question is for nothing since you don't come up with an answer to circle. It was definitely not enough time for me to finish even though the questions themselves were not confusing. The questions are modified versions of examples that he does in class but they take a while to do all of the steps. No part of this class is partial credit. You either get the answer on the exam or you don't. He is too lazy to grade for partial credit. HOWEVER you do get to use any materials you want for the exams so I would suggest making outlines of the steps of example questions so you can fill in the numbers during the exam.

The homework is fair honestly. Some questions take a while to figure out but I really can't criticize the content of questions... however, they are also graded for full or no credit. Lazy.

There is a group project that is pointless yet easy. It shouldn't be a group project... it's THAT easy. My prediction is that he is also too lazy to grade a project for each individual student.

During the first lecture, he literally told us not to go to office hours because he won't be helpful. Therefore, I did not attend office hours.

He provides no resources for studying.

Most of the example questions in his book (which I tried to use for studying) ask for proofs that don't have an answer in the back. He doesn't ask for proofs on the exams.

The MATERIAL is NOT hard. His method of grading and the way he presents the material makes the class hard.

Discussion was taught by a TA with a heavy accent and had the questions written down before class so you couldn't copy down the questions and pay attention to how he answered them at the same time. He was also kind of rude.

Shoenberg should not be a professor here, we deserve better educators than this.

DO NOT TAKE THIS CLASS WITH PROFESSOR PAIK!!!!!!! I read all the reviews about how easy the midterms are and how this class was such a breeze but it was not! We base the entire class off his shitty book, in lecture he literally reads the same thing thats in his textbook then waits a couple seconds and thinks that by giving us those few seconds we are going to magically learn what he just read?? The class in not based on if you did the work/process correctly, it's based on if you get the correct answer which shows how lazy he is in grading the exams!!!!! The exams are all multiple choice and a lot of times theres one tiny mistake that changes everything and you get the wrong answer but no partial credit just a big fat zero. While he does let us use open book and open note, it's kinda deceiving because were on such a time crunch so going through the notes/book is a hassle and wastes a lot of time. I ran out of time on every exam. Overall I was very frustrated with this class. I've had bad professors but I've been able to teach myself the material and be successful in the course but not with this class! He did not give us the materials to succeed! He based everything off his book and slides which are basically the same thing as the book and there were very few practical practice problems. Take this class with a better professor! I chose Paik because of his past grade distributions but it backfired on me. I have multiple friends who were not successful in the course so I know I'm not alone on this post

As the other reviews have mentioned, this class is probability applied to poker. Which means, if you know poker, it's really fun to watch clips of poker videos and calculate probability of poker hands. He says you don't need to know anything about poker, but I highly recommend you do, otherwise it'll be harder than necessary.

His tests are all in-class, 14 questions in 1 hr and 15 min. For the most part, he just has the same questions he does in class with changed numbers. But definitely go to class because he sometimes gives hints about the problems that can help you!

Overall, Schoenberg is really nice and helpful (he responds to your emails in a really nice way) and the class is really easy to do well (esp if you know poker). I'm quite confident though that it in no way prepares you for 100B, which he himself admitted a few times in class.

If you want to feel prepared for STATS100B or if you actually want to learn anything, don't take STATS100A with Schoenberg. His class is designed to be extremely easy. All tests are open note and multiple choice. No real trick questions on the tests, though in my opinion, there were wording issues which caused me to get wrong answers. Only three homeworks. This class was very little time commitment.

But because the class was so easy, I ended up leaving the class like I wasted my time and didn't learn anything, yet I still got an A-. I could've taken another course instead that would've been more useful to me and my major much more. Plus, now I have to take STATS100B feeling extremely unprepared.

He uploads slides as well which I used often, because his lectures were so slow and not recorded. However, his slides often had mistakes and were just unclear overall. His slides and textbook were both poorly written. Hard to read and understand.

TLDR; his teaching methods encourage students to just regurgitate material on tests and not actually absorb anything. If you don't have to take more statistics/probability classes and you don't really feel the need/want to learn probability properly, then take the course. Otherwise, choose a different professor or take Math 170A.

Quite straightforward and clear. Was quite fun to learn poker and do poker related probability questions. The tests are very manageable with no real curveballs or anything, some questions are a little tricky due to the content being glossed over in lecture. Overall, as a non stats major, the class was quite good.

Really cool guy and great professor. He teaches how teaching should be done, which I'll describe first by what he does NOT do--he does not overwhelm you with cumbersome, abstract math formulas, he does not give you PTSD-inducing stress, he does not dock you points for trivial things, he does not make you feel like a burden for approaching him. Here is what he does do-- he turns math into fun (teaching probability theory through poker), he puts effort and thought into his exams and lecture materials and slides, he is supportive of your learning.

The reason why nobody is into math is not because people hate math--it's because they hate the experiences associated with math. They don't hate learning math. They hate the way it is taught.

With Schoenberg, on the other hand, you learn the material and you learn to love learning it. The world needs more of him.

One of the easiest classes I've taken at the school. Spent very little time on this material. Will not prepare you for 100B, but if you don't need to take 100B, take this class with Rick. As other reviews note, thew whole class is based on poker. Though you don't need any prior poker knowledge (you really don't need it to do well), I would suggest familiarizing yourself with poker beforehand, by playing with friends or by watching some highlight videos (check out Daniel Negreanu on Youtube). It will make the class more interesting and enjoyable.

The other people commenting from Fall 19 are completely over-exaggerating. If you think this class was hard, you definitely did not put in the time. He gave us over an hour to do 13 multiple choice questions, and almost every single question was the same problem he did in lecture but with different numbers. And guess what, he allows open notes and book. So you can literally just copy paste the problems he put up, and you'll ace the tests. There were only three homeworks throughout the quarter, and although yes they are graded on full or no credit, you have 3-4 weeks to complete less than 5 problems, each of which the TA would go over in discussion and write down every step except the answer. This class was a joke; I would suggest reading John Rice's "Mathematical Statistics" if you want more of a mathematical background and formal proving of the things you learn in 100A. Overall, however, Schoenberg is a fair professor who doesn't assign much homework and whose tests are extremely simple.

Honestly Schoenberg tries to be a good professor, and he is, but he gets some bad rep for just being too relax and chill. His book is ok, and his midterms are pretty straightforward and easy. I think there's a lot of people who got full scores on the midterms. The good thing about schoenberg's midterms is that if you got the right answer, you know you got the right answer (it's multiple choice and all the wrong answers are gonna be very far off from the right now) so there's not really a push to go back and check your answers. Usually 13 to 14 multiple choice questions on the exams and they are not hard, but they do require some mastery and familiarity with the test material. Just do a lot of pratice questions before hand and you should be fine.
I went to his OH and he seemed pretty chill about it, a lot of people say his OH is not helpful but honestly he answers pretty much a lot of questions in class and through email as well. I would recommend taking 100A with him, but I don't know how useful his 100A is gonna be in the long run.

Take him only if you don't need to take subsequent stats classes or you are self-motivated enough to self-teach probabilities. Otherwise, you would find first few weeks of stats 100b to be a hell. If you only care about grades, take him.