Here to boost Mike's Bruinwalk rating. He's the one who designed the current Stats 20 course, and it is really one of the best introductory programming courses I have ever taken (considering I have learnt 6 programming languages in total). He's pretty much online 24/7 on Campuswire constantly answering our questions, which shows how much he cares about our learning. His lectures and lecture notes are clear and concise, which really helps in revision for exams. Though homework assignments are time-consuming, the problems are well-crafted and really fun to work on. If you are a big fan of programming, I would highly encourage you to attempt the optional advanced problems. Although exams are fairly challenging, just be familiar with potential traps / edge cases that Mike goes through during lectures, as well as the family of apply functions that he loves testing on. His curve is extremely generous too, so do not worry too much if you did not perform as well for exams. I would highly recommend taking Stats 20 with Mike, he lays a really solid foundation for you in R.

Mike's stats 20 is a fantastic class to me. I learned a lot about R language, and I also learned a lot from How Mike cares about his students. Go and take this class with no hesitation, and you will gain far more than you can imagine. At UCLA, it's really hard to find a professor that cares students so much, and luckily, Mike is one of them. I will keep the following quotes in mind:
"We need to remember what's important in life: friends, waffles, work. Or waffles, friends, work. Doesn't matter, but work is third." ― Leslie Knope.

Professor Michael Tsiang was definitely hard and this was my most challenging quarter so far, but his notes and lecture videos were so well put together and clear that overall, my experience with this class was good, but it was just a LOT of work.
I believe this class has a bad rep because of a previous TA but the current TA is so patient and explained things clearly, especially with the homework problems. The beginning was definitely a struggle for me as I had virtually no experience with R and I was always confused on how to even begin the homework. The LAs were the ones that mostly pulled me through this course and once you practice a lot, the class becomes easier.
The homework is definitely a lot harder than his exams but they're done that way in order to encourage learning and they're graded on completion only, but they do hold key understanding for the tests themselves so even if you can't figure out the homework, make sure to understand why after.
The discussion also gave a lot of practice using R and even though they didn't contain many points, they are similar to what you will see on the exams and I believe it's created by the TA.
Overall, my advice going into this class is to PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRATICE. Play around with the code and see how it interacts with different commands as you will gain a deeper understanding of how it works. The LAs also host review sessions where they further go into R code.

The grading is not strict and curves are often given. Mike is engaging and clear in his lectures and the posted notes are organized. The content is very interesting to learn and if you pay attention to class and review the notes, you'll be fine with this class! After taking Mike's stats20 gave me the incentive to take more stats classes and probably minor stats.

Very nice professor. Always answers students' questions on campuswire. Tests are ok. Very easy A+.

Stats 20 with Mike is an wonderful and caring professor, and it is a great class which I highly recommend taking. Going into this class I had some concerns because of some of its low reviews that took place around 2019 and 2020, but the class has been revamped and is a lot better. The grading on homework assignments is based on completion so as long as you give it a good effort you will get credit. The TA Eduardo is also very knowledgeable and approachable in office hours and discussion. If you take this course wanting to learn R, you will get a lot out of it and finish with a good grade.

Don't be scared about taking this class! I was nervous going in based on prior reviews, but this class has been restructured a bit from the ~dark days~ mentioned by some other reviews and is not anything to fear.

That being said, I would not say this is an easy class per se, but if you go to lecture and do the homework (even though they are for completion, if it definitely worth your while to dedicate a significant portion of time to really trying each problem), as well as go to office hours for things you are unsure about, you can succeed in this class.

Professor Mike is truly one of the kindest professors I have had, and cares a lot about your success both in the course (i.e. understanding R) and overall. He dedicates a lot of time via office hours and on campuswire helping out students, and emphasizes prioritizing your mental health over grades, which I appreciate. Also!! Exams are less difficult than homework, so don't freak out if the homework takes you hours upon hours; exam questions will test similar info but the solutions can often be done somewhat simply.

Mike is amazing. Amazing professor and amazing person. When he tells you that whole grades aren't more important than your health you best believe he means that, it's not just something he says just to say it. During finals week when I got an untimely illness to say that he was accommodating and helpful would be an understatement. If you are going through something reach out to him he is a very caring and understanding professor which is somewhat of a rarity in South Campus. Also a great lecturer, I'm the type to stop going to lecture after Week 6ish but I kept going into Week 10. He really breaks down the material nicely but keeps it light like you leave the lecture not even realizing just how much you just learned. Also, laugh at his nerdy jokes, nobody in my hall did and it was super depressing because they were actually lowkey funny.

The class itself is hard but manageable. Don't go into it thinking it will be easy or even medium. If you go into it knowing that you will have to learn an entire coding language from scratch (which is hard) then you will be fine. How to do well in this class? HOMEWORK, HOMEWORK, HOMEWORK. Don't leave it to the last minute. Don't copy it. Really struggle through it trust me it is better to struggle on the homework than cram before the test. Do it by yourself, not with a partner. Also, do or at least try the advanced problems, they are not required but do it anyway.

The grading is beyond fair, the tests are strictly graded but the curve is generous to make up for it. It is after all, a class rank test which is annoying for other students to have to do poorly for you to look better in comparison but it's as close to fair as course like this can get.

I think somebody in here posted the grading distribution so find that.

DR. MIKE IS F--ING AWESOME! TAKE THIS CLASS, YOU WILL NOT REGRET IT! The old Bruinwalk reviews scared me, so I really hesitated to join this class. However, Dr. Mike is quite literally one of the sweetest, most empathetic, fun Profs I have ever met. He made a lot of adjustments to his curriculum in light of his student feedback.

He knows his lectures like the back of his hand and creates these organized pdfs of the material. His class was also really engaging and he managed to make me laugh in each lecture. He also teaches in a way where you can just focus on your learning without being concerned about your grade. I never found myself stressed or incentivized to cheat to do well.

The homework, while challenging, is graded on completion. The exams are quite difficult, but he curves generously so it doesn't really matter in the end. Just focus on trying to learn from mistakes you make on past exams. A study hack for this class is to also play around with R commands and see how outputs change depending on different types of inputs. He literally gives you all the resources you need for the class condensed on his pdfs, so Stack overflow is entirely useless and exams never have surprises on them. You will leave this class with a foundational knowledge of R that will help you loads in the future.

Dr. Mike also makes himself super available to his students. He has extensive office hours and is eager to answer all questions that come his way. He also places a strong emphasis on the importance of mental health and he cares about his students deeply.

Seriously, this class is fantastic. Ignore the other reviews, you'll be in great hands :)

Before taking STATS 20 with Dr. Mike, a lot of students are discussing how heavy the workload is and how terrible it might be if the TA is Jake. To be honest I was a little bit intimidated by many comments about this class.

The class is more intense than I expected, one HW each week, and it is going to take about two days to finish (learning and doing problems). But I promise you as long as you do the problems, you will have a better sense of how to be a good coder! I have to say I became a better coder because of Mike and Ian.

Don't be worried if you have trouble with getting help. Mike's Campuswire is super helpful, you can get feedback from Mike or your fellow peers within 30mins. However, you won't expect to get the exact answer, but you will be getting a lot of useful hints.

Mike always emphasizes focusing on learning other than grades. Although he tries to push all the students as much as he can, he would be very thoughtful and nice.

There's one sentence from Mike that I would never forget as a student: "Your mental and physical&mental wellbeing and integrity is always more important than grades. " I forgot the exact words but he quoted a really good saying, "Friends&family, waffle, and work are the most important threes things, no matter what the order is, work is always going to be the third one.

If you are looking for an instructor who seems to be giving easy lectures, HW's, and A's, Mike is definitely your worst choice; If you are looking for an instructor who is pushing students hard but being helpful, and you care about learning more than grades, Mike would be your best choice.