do not take this class. very difficult material and professor is hard to understand.

I took this class in the winter and it was by far the most unpleasant teaching experience I have had thus far. The class material is rather confusing on its own and in conjunction to her teaching style, it was even worse. I took this class when there was a mandatory lockdown and for the first four weeks, our classes were held on zoom. These four weeks were misery. The professor would have 7 slides on average each session with one or two pictures on them and no words or written work. We would, for literally 1 hour and 15 minutes stare stare a schematic of chaos while she talked the whole time. When we went back in person, it was much better since they would use the whiteboard to go through concepts, however it was sometimes hard to hear her, so sit in the front. The labs in this class were also very confusing and a large step from what you saw in 30A. So be prepared to work with your groups or TAs or literally anyone else in the class because the coding in this class is just thrown at you for and hour and 50 minutes and never spoken of again. The professor also assigns a large amount of work. We had more homework problems than the other 30B classes with different professors. We also, going into finals week, had around 46 questions of HW (with multiple parts for each) and a capstone project, both of which took forever to complete. And that was in addition to the studying and work you had for your other classes. The homework in this class also involves coding problems which was something that other classes rarely had on their homework. I would not say she is the worse lecturer, but she is very close. She rarely would expound on some concepts and would just assume you would read the textbook. Part of the problem is, I think, is that she was one of the leading authors of the textbook. This means that everything that she could possibly say or want to say is IN the textbook. So, she probably felt she did not ever really need to explain concepts. However, perusing textbooks to learn math is very difficult for many in addition to being ineffective. The first midterm was okay, there is an individual and group portion, the latter being more difficult obviously. She also gave previous midterms to help you practice, however they did not really resemble the actual midterm. The final was outright egregious, there was also a mistake on the test. When multiple people asked on Campuswire if there was a mistake, the TA literally told us, with great confidence, that there was no mistake, despite the fact that there in fact was (they later confirmed this). The final was very hard and did not reflect the type of learning we had done in the previous weeks. If you asked me five weeks into the quarter, ten weeks into the quarter, or even after the quarter ended what I learned in the class, I would give you the same answer: nothing. However, this class is probably easier than the other math series so if you are an LS major, then just bite the bullet, your GPA will thank you.

This class is manageable. Class structure is lecture on Thursday and Q&A on Tuesday. Jane is a really nice person. She’s interested in interacting with her students and she was very considerate of her students.

The lectures are somewhat slow. Also, every Thursday she assigns a horrific amount of videos for you to watch. Learning from about five to eight 15-40 minute videos every week is not ideal, but this class could be much worse.

Homework and notes are assigned everyday Thursday and due the following Thursday. They’re all graded on completion, so don’t worry. There’s a weekly quiz, but it’s not that bad because you get three tries and unlimited time. Labs are somewhat difficult, but I had the best TA ever (John), so I got the help I needed.

The midterm and final weren’t bad because it was open note for 24 hours. The tests are very similar to LS 30A tests. However, I wouldn’t have been able to get an A on the tests if they weren’t open note, so I’m glad I took this class online. We also had a group project instead of a second midterm. Project was fine and you can ask the TA’s for help.

If you take 30A and 30B-do it with Dr. Jane! She is a really helpful professor. During covid, she made herself available for extra help and office hours more than any other professor. She genuinely wants you to learn and understand the material. She gave us a PDF of the textbook -which she wrote herself- and it's a useful addition to her lectures. The homework felt like busywork sometimes, but come exam time, I was happy to have had all the extra practice. I disliked the pre-class videos each week because they were so long, but otherwise her lectures were worthwhile. She also picks stellar TA's who are very knowledgeable about writing code.

Professor Shevtsov is a great professor. I took this class when quarantine started, so there was a bit of an adjustment period for online classes, and Prof Shevtsov was very understanding and accommodating. She's really helpful during lecture, answers questions clearly, and is thorough in her explanations. Lectures can be slow sometimes, but that was because she went through each problem step by step to make sure everyone understood the process and how to do it. She's also one of the people who wrote the textbook, and it is clear that she is passionate about what she teaches!
Compared to 30A, 30B is pretty similar in terms of class logistics but more difficult in content overall. If you did well in 30A, then 30B shouldn't be too bad.

This series was quite literally the bane of my existence. I genuinely have not struggled more in a class than I did in LS30B. The slides were very disorganized and were only published after lectures which definitely hindered my learning experience. The professor is not very clear and I did not feel supported by the TA’s as I felt they were inexperienced. It was very tough to establish connections between the content. It’s definitely a doable class, but you will have to put in a lot of effort. I studied weeks for the final and they were the most stressful weeks of my life. Lastly, there were a couple technical difficulties in regards to the mic so it was tough to hear especially in such a big lecture hall. Good Luck.

Overall, this class is pretty confusing because the lectures are not really helpful at all. The lectures are so slow that I eventually just stopped going and learned everything on my own using the textbook. The homework problems are often extremely long (one submission was over 20 pages) and include coding too, which is not even tested on the midterms or finals. Another issue is that the answer key for the homework isn't available until days after the homework is submitted, which is really problematic when the questions are difficult. The midterm was easy and I did better than expected on the final, which helped my grade a lot. There is also a capstone project which includes a lot of coding that was extremely time consuming, especially since it was assigned the last 3 weeks of the quarter. Overall, if you are planning on taking this class with shevvy, be prepared :))

Shevtsov is not as bad as people are making her out to be. Her office hours are really good and she spends a significant amount of time answering people's questions, however the other professors are more clear in explanation of material. The capstone is unnecessarily difficult along with the lab portion which should have not been put together. Expect to really lean on TA's Office Hours for support with this class. For exams, the old practice finals are especially helpful

If you took 30A with a good professor, prepare to be disappointed in 30B. Nobody pays attention in class and everyone is always talking over Jane which makes it impossible to hear her. The only time I actually could pay attention and learn was when class was online when she was sick. She would spend 99% of the lecture going through long computations that finally "come together" in the last 2 mins of class when everyone was already packing up and leaving. The concepts in this class are genuinely ridiculous and something I will never be using in the future. The homework was also absurdly long for no reason and they had a 20 page homework assignment due the week of the final. The labs were awful and so much worse than 30A especially if you don't have an LA that is helpful. The capstone project was a joke and they didn't even care when half of our group never did any work and we told our TA about it countless times. This capstone project genuinely kept me up morning and night stressing from weeks 7-10. And each week you would still have labs due along with the group project work. At the end it was literally just a completion grade so don't stress over it as much as I did. I honestly am unsure how I passed this class because even though I did all of the homework and labs well, the midterm and final were very bad. I am not good at math and didn't study at all for the midterm so that was to be expected. I studied so hard for the final and it was so absurdly long and hard for no reason, they are still barely done grading it hours before the final grade deadline. This series is fake math and I am so glad to be done. DO NOT TAKE LS40. Don't let them suck you back into the lifesci fake math hole again, just take stats 13. Stay safe and get out when you can.

Terrible experience.