Professor
Salma Mousa
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Most Helpful Review
Fall 2025 - Having read the few (negative) reviews for this class prior to taking it, I sort of knew what to expect. To put it simply, I genuinely dreaded going to/even thinking about this class. The class was mainly centered around a quarter-long group research project about any social science topic. Luckily, I got a good group and we all worked well together, but if you get a bad group, you’re kind of out of luck because a large part of your grade is the project itself. So choose wisely. The grade breakdown for the class was as follows: - Critical Reading Reflection (10%): a brief reflection on one of the readings discussed in class (can be done as a group) - R Tutorials (15%): a total of 7 tutorials completed in R studio, each consisting of the tutorial itself and the accompanying exercises (can also be done in groups) - Group Project (40%): consisting of literature review (10%), research design (20%), and pilot (10%). - Survey Design (15%): a survey instrument designed in Qualtrics about any social science topic, as well as giving feedback to others about their survey - Attendance and Participation (20%): includes both lecture attendance and also active participation in section To start, lectures were incredibly pointless. Unfortunately, attendance was required, so skipping them is not an option. You have one excused absence and must attend on Zoom. Any other absences require you to submit a 500-word reflection on a reading for that week, which I thought was ridiculous and honestly way too strict. Some lectures were dedicated towards explaining how to navigate the research project, while others discussed the readings for the week. The only time I did a single reading was for the critical reading reflection. You seriously don’t need them. The lectures were meant to help up with the research project, but both me and those in my group agreed that they were useless. Section was primarily focused on R, which would give us the skills to complete the R tutorial’s. A few lectures throughout the quarter were also focused on additional R lessons and led by the TA, since we would sometimes run out of time in section. I found section to be the only helpful/enjoyable part of the class. Our TA was really nice, explained the concepts very well, and answered all of our questions. As another review says, the TA should’ve taught this class, and I agree wholeheartedly. To be honest, I thought that the grading was pretty lenient for this class, but it was definitely hard to get a perfect score on assignments. For each assignment, however, we received very thorough feedback from our TA, which I really appreciated. Halfway through the quarter, many students expressed concerns about their grade, so they began offering extra credit opportunities, mainly in the form of extra R/coding work, an in-class presentation explaining your group project, and research design revisions. If you did all of them, you would have racked up 20% of extra credit that would be applied to your final grade. Yep—so two whole letter grades, which I thought was very, very generous. But note that they may not do that every quarter, I’m just saying what happened for our class. The worst part of the class for me was not even the research project—it was the R tutorials. They genuinely take so long (hours for a single tutorial), and I would get so frustrated working on them (especially the exercises). I would suggest working with a group, but your work can’t be the exact same as you have to show your own thought process/understanding through comments! In short, my advice for succeeding in this class would be to pick a good group, start the R tutorials ahead of time so you have plenty of time to troubleshoot your code, be at every lecture so you don’t lose points, and actively participate in section. Also do as many extra credit assignments as you can, but again, not sure if they will be offered in future quarters. All in all, it’s not a horrible class, but definitely not the best option. Avoid taking it unless you really need to, or if you have prior background in R/will be taking the class with friends.
Fall 2025 - Having read the few (negative) reviews for this class prior to taking it, I sort of knew what to expect. To put it simply, I genuinely dreaded going to/even thinking about this class. The class was mainly centered around a quarter-long group research project about any social science topic. Luckily, I got a good group and we all worked well together, but if you get a bad group, you’re kind of out of luck because a large part of your grade is the project itself. So choose wisely. The grade breakdown for the class was as follows: - Critical Reading Reflection (10%): a brief reflection on one of the readings discussed in class (can be done as a group) - R Tutorials (15%): a total of 7 tutorials completed in R studio, each consisting of the tutorial itself and the accompanying exercises (can also be done in groups) - Group Project (40%): consisting of literature review (10%), research design (20%), and pilot (10%). - Survey Design (15%): a survey instrument designed in Qualtrics about any social science topic, as well as giving feedback to others about their survey - Attendance and Participation (20%): includes both lecture attendance and also active participation in section To start, lectures were incredibly pointless. Unfortunately, attendance was required, so skipping them is not an option. You have one excused absence and must attend on Zoom. Any other absences require you to submit a 500-word reflection on a reading for that week, which I thought was ridiculous and honestly way too strict. Some lectures were dedicated towards explaining how to navigate the research project, while others discussed the readings for the week. The only time I did a single reading was for the critical reading reflection. You seriously don’t need them. The lectures were meant to help up with the research project, but both me and those in my group agreed that they were useless. Section was primarily focused on R, which would give us the skills to complete the R tutorial’s. A few lectures throughout the quarter were also focused on additional R lessons and led by the TA, since we would sometimes run out of time in section. I found section to be the only helpful/enjoyable part of the class. Our TA was really nice, explained the concepts very well, and answered all of our questions. As another review says, the TA should’ve taught this class, and I agree wholeheartedly. To be honest, I thought that the grading was pretty lenient for this class, but it was definitely hard to get a perfect score on assignments. For each assignment, however, we received very thorough feedback from our TA, which I really appreciated. Halfway through the quarter, many students expressed concerns about their grade, so they began offering extra credit opportunities, mainly in the form of extra R/coding work, an in-class presentation explaining your group project, and research design revisions. If you did all of them, you would have racked up 20% of extra credit that would be applied to your final grade. Yep—so two whole letter grades, which I thought was very, very generous. But note that they may not do that every quarter, I’m just saying what happened for our class. The worst part of the class for me was not even the research project—it was the R tutorials. They genuinely take so long (hours for a single tutorial), and I would get so frustrated working on them (especially the exercises). I would suggest working with a group, but your work can’t be the exact same as you have to show your own thought process/understanding through comments! In short, my advice for succeeding in this class would be to pick a good group, start the R tutorials ahead of time so you have plenty of time to troubleshoot your code, be at every lecture so you don’t lose points, and actively participate in section. Also do as many extra credit assignments as you can, but again, not sure if they will be offered in future quarters. All in all, it’s not a horrible class, but definitely not the best option. Avoid taking it unless you really need to, or if you have prior background in R/will be taking the class with friends.
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