I've heard a lot of complaints about Dr. V and I was kinda scared to take her class at first, but honestly, it's quite a good class.

She's really reciprocating with our requests, like, our first bi-weekly quiz was kind of hard, so when she got the feedback from us she immediately changed her test style and made the rest of our bi-weekly quizzes much more suitable.

She's also organized in terms of letting you know exactly what you're learning, and there's a clear outline to each lecture, homework, and quiz.

The midterm was pretty much exactly what she taught in lectures and the TA's study office hours. It was very straightforward.

Also, she links us to supplement videos to get a better understanding of the content. Obviously, it seems tedious to have to watch even more videos on top of lectures, but I see it as studying, just like how you would read textbooks outside of lectures to gain a better understanding.

I had a different professor last quarter which many students loved, but I find myself understanding Dr. V's lectures with ease, and just understanding the content in general much better. To me, the workload isn't too bad either. Every two weeks I probably spend a day doing the bi-weekly homework, and a day watching supplement videos as revision for bi-weekly quizzes.

Obviously, this is just my personal experience and opinions, everyone is different and has different learning styles. But yea her class is really manageable.

I don't know why Dr. V got a lot of hate in previous years. Sure, she may not be very clear during live lectures, but rewatching the lectures really help. She is also very accommodating and responds well to any concerns that students might have in order to minimize our workload. Dr. V also provides resources that may help further clarify some concepts such as supplemental videos. She's very sweet and it's evident that she's proud whenever students get a good grade on tests/assignments.

Hi, first of all, I want to say that a lot of people come into this class already having a certain opinion about Dr. V because of what they've heard. However, none of these things are really true. I personally loved having Dr. V for LS30B and wish I would've taken her for LS30A. Dr. V is extremely caring, receptive to student feedback, and genuinely wants students to succeed. I don't really understand what people mean when they say she's not a "good lecturer" because she breaks down all the concepts into easy-to-understand explanations, and her slides are very well organized. I learned a lot better in LS30B than I did in LS30A with a different professor. The midterm and final were straightforward and related to what we covered in lecture/labs, so everything was extremely fair.

I can see why some people thought the class was disorganized though. I'll admit that in the first 1-2 weeks of the quarter, things were a little chaotic and students voiced their concerns with the class structure. However, some of the students, especially those who were most verbal in the GroupMe, went pretty far with their concerns. They were oftentimes very rude to Dr. V, despite her making appropriate accommodations for the class afterwards. But there were also a lot of people I know who appreciated Dr. V's flexibility, so don't be swayed by negative Bruinwalk reviews or people who send the most messages in the GroupMe (those who have strong opinions tend to be more verbal about them so oftentimes, people end up thinking this is the majority opinion when it's not). One thing that could be improved about this class though is the clarity of things. At times, instructions for the bi-weekly HWs, midterm, final were a little unclear/confusingly phrased.

However, one thing I do want to mention too is that Dr. V completely transformed the format/grading structure of this class for Winter 2021 specifically. I loved this new format, as it allowed me to learn more effectively, and I didn't have to stress as much over homework like I did in LS30A. Your experience may differ taking this class in a different quarter/in-person.

Bottom line is, take some of these negative reviews with a grain of salt because Dr. V really cares for students and is extremely empathetic.

I've heard mixed reviews about this class but I'll give my take on it. Venugopal is a professor who actually tries to teach her students the concepts and I can't lie that these concepts will stick with me for a long time - it is interesting, insightful, and logical. However, be warned - this class is very (note VERY) coding heavy; this is especially true in the labs. In addition, the exams she administers are very LONG (way longer than the 3 hours she says it should take) and are vague (however, this has gotten better through the quarter and they became much more explicit).

She gave us 30 points (of 1000 in the course total, so 3%) extra credit but no more as of Fall 2020.

With respect to her lectures, I have to admit, I have not gone to any of her classes nor attended her lectures (with the exception of the more difficult concepts) because of time-zone differences but frankly, looking at the slides and going to lab will allow you to succeed in the class.

As of Fall 2020, you're graded on 4 different categories: Labs, Homework, Knowledge Assessments, and Exams - which I will go over briefly:

Labs:
Tedious, but the TAs are very helpful (shoutout Alec if he's still teaching it!). The labs can be difficult to understand but they do integrate very well with what is learned in class. I recommend going to the labs synchronously as you will need to consolidate your code for your homework (if you get something wrong in the lab, then your homework will also reflect that)
- NOTE as of Fall 2020, labs are not GRADED

Homework:
Built on the concepts learned in class and lab. Literally, most of it is copy and paste (with respect to code) but the later labs require you to make some edits in accordance to your understanding; having background knowledge in Python would be very helpful however is not needed - it will be more difficult though.

Knowledge Assessments:
Just to reconsolidate your information and is a good way to summarize concepts between weeks. Was graded on completion during Fall 2020 (you submit it, you get full points, hence completion)

Exams:
She gave us 24 hours to do them but said it should take 3. In actuality, the midterm takes around 5-8 and the final takes around 7-10 hours. The final was a LOT better structured than the midterm however, the TAs do seem to give as many points as possible and did so as long as you are thorough. Her exams, however, are poorly structured but she did listen to feedback (I think!) about the poor structures and the vagueness so this shouldn't be much of a problem. The thing is, the exams in this class are just open-ended and require you to understand the concepts to be able to complete them. Thus, you'll be writing essays for each subpart of the question to fully grasp and cover all your bases to maximize your points.
(Also, points allocations for individual questions on exams do not exist in this class and are hella unclear on what constitutes to what, even in her rubric, so you just gotta cover all your bases to get as many points as you can.)

OKAY I AM GOING TO GIVE IT TO YOU GUYS STRAIGHT...
-As someone who had both Jukka (for LS 30A) and Dr. V (this class obvi) I can confidently say that this class is waaaaayyyyyy easier & less stress & workload.
- Dr. V has a bad rep but honestly, this class was embarrassingly easy and low stress compared to Jukka (crying I still love you Jukka)
-I am going to be honest I gave this class little to no effort and I still did well I don't think you can get away with that as easy with Jukka
SO TYPICAL WEEK...
1) You HAVE to attend every live lecture for participation points WHICH SUCKS not really useful
2) I guess this is where you are supposed to do the homework but I NEVER did lmaoooo
3) Labs which suck but the graders are hella nice & I still do not know how to code to this day but I got full credit on the labs
4) On the weeks where actual homework is due and we have bi-weekly quizzes I reviewed like an hour before I took the quizzes and it's really easy to get a high grade bc of the retakes (you're welcome :) )
5) for the homework my group and I split it up so we completed it on the same doc & had less homework but then before we turned it in we reworded to & whatever so we don't turn in the same copy (totally okay I think)
6) MIDTERM & FINAL were super low stress bc we got to work with our groups and even then, the content was not hard
OVERALL...
I would recommend even over Jukka if you are looking for an easy class with minimal effort

Venugopal is nice, but she's a terrible lecturer. She wasn't good at explaining concepts and was really unclear. I hated going to class because it was a waste of my time, but I had to because of clickers. The midterm was easy, the final was kinda rough but still not too bad. Homework wasn't mandatory, and the labs are pretty easy. Honestly I hated this class but at least it was easy. TAs were honestly more helpful.

This class is challenging at times but Venugopal is a great teacher and really made an effort to make the class go as smooth as it could online. The material is difficult but Venugopal did good with making it easy to learn. Really enjoyed this class.

Dr. V. is definitely very accommodating and values student feedback. To replace homework problems, we had biweekly study guides and biweekly exams, alongside a midterm and final. Although the frequency of exams could get tiring, each biweekly exam had 2 attempts so it is very possible to do well if you put in a reasonable amount of effort into putting together your study guide. I honestly liked the study guide system, as it touched upon concepts that Dr. V. included in later tests (including the midterm and final), and I consistently referred back to the ones I made throughout the year. Generally, the more effort you put into your study guide, the more valuable it is!

Again, textbook HW problems were not required this quarter but I would recommend doing most of them anyways as it is great practice – Dr. V. posts the answer keys for them so it is easy to check as you solve. (For some reason she omits the answers to certain challenging problems, which I to this day don't understand the reason for, but she includes the answers to almost everything else.)

She also posts lots of supplementary content videos, which honestly add up to a lot of time. Garfinkel's videos are useful for the first few weeks (on chaos, stable oscillations, DDE, etc), but to be completely honest I would say only watch them if you are struggling with a concept or the way the professor explains it (a lot of the videos tend to explain things better than actual lecture).

The midterm was similarly structured to the biweekly exams and also reasonably written (doing the practice finals help a lot!), with a 24 hour period allotted. The final, which had a 48 hour period allotted, also had a coding component which was intimidating but ended up being doable, as she provided template code. The coding component covered mainly the material that was covered in the first few labs.

Lastly, a quick summary of my review using pros and cons:
PROS
- very receptive to student feedback
- exams are fairly written
- provides lots of supplementary resources to help struggling students
- active/actually answers questions on Campuswire
- provides answer keys to textbook HW problems so you can easily check your work

CONS
- answers to questions are vague and not the most helpful
- explanation of concepts can be long-winded and difficult to follow (reading the textbook/watching other content videos helps a lot)
- responses to Campuswire questions can be a little on the blunt side
- frequency of exams can get tiring (biweekly exams, midterm, and final – the last biweekly exam we had 4 days before the final)
- no labs dropped

People are really harsh on Dr. V, but she was honestly a good professor.
After each quiz, she would poll the class to gauge how we felt about the difficulty. When she noticed that people were unhappy, she immediately made them easier so more people could get full credit. Throughout the course, Dr. V was constantly adjusting the course to make it as accommodating as possible.
Sometimes, her lectures could be hard to follow because she would run out of time to go in-depth on new topics, but she always provided optional videos that would clarify things in lecture.
I really enjoyed her format for homework because instead of assigning textbook problems, she had us construct study guides with questions directly taken from her slides. This was a great way to review and it really showed which textbook questions were worth doing. Plus, we could use them during tests.
Dr. V is genuinely such a sweet person and you can tell she loves teaching this course. Don't be scared off from taking her class!

LS40 was a mess. Do not take this class if you don't have some kind of background in statistics, this class skims lightly over key concepts and instead opts to tell you about why traditional statistics is wrong constantly. It could have been my own Zoom University fatigue but the lectures in this class were almost always painful and barely helpful. The labs were difficult and although TA's helped often , I feel like the labs should have been walked through by the TA's so the students can actually understand the homework assignments. I thought this class would be much more like LS30A and LS30B with more collaboration between students but I often felt alone and lost in this class. LS40 is pretty much under construction right now and is very disorganized and unwelcoming. Easily the worst class I have taken during my "freshman year" here at home.

P.S. Dr. V is a very nice person and taught well enough in LS30A and LS30B. She is also very accommodating for students. LS40 just does not fit her teaching style. I know she tries her best but her lectures were tough at times.