Professor Lew is absolutely fantastic.

Having come in with little to no programming experience (AP CS in high school), she makes learning R fun. Especially during COVID, she has been so understanding of students' struggles (e.g. recording lectures, providing opportunities for up to 10% extra credit, dropping lowest grades). Though she might seem intimidating, I would recommend anyone to attend her office hours at least once: she has so much professional experience in the stats field (i.e. not just as a professor) as well as so much wisdom to offer. This class is primarily based on projects and assignments, and unlike the other professor who teaches Stats 20, there are no formal exams. I'd say that it is very easy to earn a decent grade if you put your best foot forward; even if she were not as lenient because of the pandemic, I'd assume it'd be the same. Although I haven't received my final grade yet, I'm very confident about my performance in her class because she makes it clear how to earn points/what she's looking for (tip: don't over analyze instructions!). Some other notes: (1) there is no curve for the course, though I don't see when one would be needed and (2) don't get the recommended textbook. Because of her, I feel like I have a solid understanding of R and have decided to pursue a minor in stats! I'd love to take any future courses with her.

** COVID Review **
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Grading:
- Engagement 15%
- Lessons 15%
- Discussion Attendance 20%
- Labs 20%
- Final 30%
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As someone who came into this class without much programming experience, I can definitely say that Professor Lew is the way to go for Stats 20! She tries to make R easy to understand and learn. All the other positive reviews here speak the truth! She has so much knowledge, experience, and connections in the field of statistics, and it's clear that she cares that what we learn easily translates to marketable skills for real-life jobs and interviews. Sometimes she will mention her experiences and her past students' experiences and relate them to lectures, and then her knowledge and experience become quite clear. I suppose to some extent she is intimidating, but her lectures are clear, she encourages questions, and is very helpful during office hours. Definitely a good professor to engage with, I wish I had talked to her a bit more. The way she structures her class makes it easy to succeed as long as there is some effort, and Jake does not TA for her Stats 20 classes!
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The "Engagement" in the grading scheme is basically participation outside of class, using Campuswire to engage with Professor Lew and the rest of the class. However, you do not actively need to post questions, answers, or responses if you don't want to as she creates a poll every week for minimum participation and simply gives full credit for participating in that alone (but if you have questions on homework Campuswire is a good place to go to). Discussion attendance was fulfilled simply by being present at discussion sections, and our TA Eric Fischer allowed us to attend whichever discussion fit best into our schedule regardless of which one we were officially enrolled in. He basically spent the time answering any homework questions and clarifying concepts people were confused about, and this helped quite a lot.
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"Lessons" were our homework assignments and the lowest 3 were dropped. On each lesson page, she gives some examples of the types of things we are expected to know how to program and then asks some questions which we have to write solutions to in R Markdown. These vary in difficulty but any confusion could be clarified by the TA in discussion or by someone on Campuswire who had figured out a solution. Labs were basically assignments related to an ongoing project over the quarter. The final product was a Shiny app made using a dataset she gave us, which had to have some type of output such as a graph or map in response to user input. I think her Spring Quarter class did this project in groups and had slightly higher expectations, but she allows more flexibility and ease for Summer Session since there's less time and it's not done in groups. The final is modeled on a technical interview and is open for 27 hours. It isn't necessarily super easy, but as long as you have been properly keeping up with the material and the lessons you should be able to produce reasonable solutions to the prompt on the final.
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Overall I would highly recommend Professor Lew for Stats 20. She's kind, clear, and engaging. She structures her teaching around teaching us useful skills, and she tries to make it so anyone can succeed. If you can, take her class for sure!

I came into this class with virtually no coding experience. However, I generally enjoyed the class. The class is structured with lectures, discussion, and homework assignments called "lessons". I think the lessons were really useful and helping you learn R by getting you to apply the code you were learning in class in it. Discussions were pretty much the TA going over any questions people had about the lessons and in lecture, Professor Lew went over slides about coding in R. We also had to do a "Lab" that spanned the entire class. It was divided into 4 parts to turn in and the premise was to use the data the Professor gave us to create a shiny app that has an input the user can control and a corresponding output (graph, map, etc.). Professor Lew is also super nice and occasionally tells funny stories and all and all, would highly recommend this class with Professor Lew.

I waited to take Stats 20 until I found an enrollment slot with Professor Lew and that was the best decision I ever made. First of all, her grading scale is more than fair and she is very considerate with her students. The final is 30% of the grade but she prepares you well and she does not grade harshly. My TA was Eric Fischer and he was amazing! He was very helpful with the lessons, which were due about every 3 or 4 days. Overall, this class was tough but it will be the same difficulty with whichever professor you take it with. Thus, if you get the chance take it with Professor Lew and trust me, you will not regret it.

They changed the way this class is formatted this quarter (no midterms no final, only projects). If you have Jake as TA, DROP IMMEDIATELY. He was the only reason why a lot of people don't want to major in stats anymore and made this class so much more stressful than it is supposed to be. Professor Lew is very nice and approachable but I guess she couldn't really do anything about the TA either. I would take her again but definitely avoid Jake as a TA with all costs.

10/10 would take again. I'm a junior math major trying to pick up a stats minor and I LOVED Professor Lew. She is so kind and engaging. The TA Ashley was also amazing 10/10, she went above and beyond and really cemented the material. Out of any class, I've taken this one is most useful in actually getting a job after graduation. Hopefully I can pick up one or two upperdivs with either Lew or Ashley. If you have an option between Lew and any other Professor the choice is clear.

Professor Lew is a fantastic lecturer! Every lecture was very clear and interesting and she provides good examples to made sure her students understand the concepts. She does a great job of exposing students to R and gives them practical skills to use in future courses. This class wasn’t extremely difficult and the homework/labs were actually fun to do! I really recommend talking this course with her!

Professor Lew structured Stats 20 much better than Tsiang. The workload is reasonable. The attendance was counted to extra credits.

By far one of the most useful and valuable class you can take. Lew is very helpful in lectures and office hours and explain things very clearly. Exams and labs are very fair. The labs are honestly not hard. I usually do them the day they are due lol and did just fine. The lab exams (midterm and finals) are tricky so make sure you do all the practice she posts and redo the lessons and lab beforehand. Also get a lot of sleep before hand so you can catch the details and no waste time like me on stupid things. Overall this class is really not difficult you just have to try. Lew cares a lot about her students and wants to make sure that they learn how to use R pragmatically. Take her if you can!

Professor Lew is one of the best professors I have had during my time at UCLA. She genuinely cares about students and will be willing to set up office hours appointments whenever necessary. Extremely helpful with questions and explains things very clearly, especially during office hours. Lew is more concerned that you know R extremely well, so if you do somewhat inconsistent in the class but nail the lab midterm and final and can demonstrate extremely R skills, she would probably we willing to reconsider your final grade.
The class wasn't too difficult, but would suggest starting on lab assignments ahead of time - they are due every Friday. You CAN skip lecture, but wouldn't recommend, especially if there's participation. Lab midterm and final are both in class during discussion section, and there's a MCQ element as well that is in class for the midterm and final. Take Professor Lew if you can - that is all.