Professor Liao is a good instructor. He explains concepts from the first principles and is very knowledgeable about the material. However, this course is more theoretical than practical, so avoid this course if you want to get hands-on experience in financial engineering.

Grade-wise, Professor Liao is a lenient grader. It is quite easy to get A/A- but requires a lot more work to get an A+.

Overall, a decent quantitative upper elective. Would take it again.

After reading the reviews for this class, I was very worried it was going to be super difficult. Especially given that your grade is 30% midterm and 70% final (or 100% final if you do better on it). I also have never taken a stats class before and have only ever taken calculus. For me, I found this class to be far easier than both econ 11 and econ 101. However, I also tend to struggle with the conceptual content in econ classes rather than the math, and this class did not have any connection to econ concepts at all besides a few slides he threw in that were not tested on. Although he has a pretty strong accent and was hard to understand at times, if you just read along with the slides while he lectures, it does help a lot. I went to mostly all of the lectures in person but was not really paying the closest attention, so you could definitely just get on the Zoom or watch the recordings and be okay. There are optional homework assignments with every lecture. I would recommend doing these as he completes the lectures. Most of them are pretty short and do not take a long time besides the last few chapters, which did take quite a bit more time just because the content is more difficult after the midterm. The midterm was almost exactly like the two practice midterms he provided. I do not think there were any problems from the homework, but it gives you extra practice, so I would recommend doing the homework problems as well. For the final, he did switch it up a bit. However, there were still many questions that were very similar to the practice exam questions and the homework questions. I would recommend doing the practice final and practice midterms many times. If you memorize the questions and the formulas you need to solve these problems, it will help you go through the exam much faster since he only gives you two hours for 51 multiple choice questions and you have to go pretty fast to finish. There were also a few questions on the final that were very similar to some of the homework questions, so doing those helped me a lot as well. Like I said, he does throw a few curveball questions in there, but I assume that was to bring the average down a bit since the average on the midterm was a B+. The average on the final was around 68%. I do think he ended up curving the class up slightly since I should have ended up with an A-. Overall, I think Zhipeng is not a bad professor. He seems to always want to help his students and is very good at replying to emails. If you listen to his advice about what to study, you will do well.

Liao is not as bad as the other reviews make him out to be. His accent is understandable (mostly), and his lectures are clear when you attend in person (but very difficult to make out on recordings). He does not simply read off the slides, and attending lectures in person made a difference. Difficulty picks up significantly post-midterm (90% median on midterm; 69% final). But doing all the HW problems repeatedly, taking the practice tests, and strategizing which time-consuming mcq to skip (i.e. joint pmf problems) will set you up for a good score. There are many formulas to memorize, but they follow a pattern after a while. Don't leave it to the last minute and you'll be ok

I find it hard to review this professor due to personal ups and downs during the quarter. I performed well on the midterm after studying hard and received a high grade, but struggled on the final. Thankfully, my midterm grade balanced things out. Overall, he is a fair instructor.