STAT * 2040 – Statistics I S,F,W (3-2) [0.50]

Take stats from Umphrey! The lectures can be hard to follow if you don\'t read through the material ahead of time on the slides, but the simple solution to that is just to prepare ahead of time for them. He gives so many great examples in class, especially during the probability unit. His office hours are really helpful as well, and he loves to chat. Both midterms were extremely predictable and very fair because he gives you a ton of practice midterms from past years.. literally his entire midterm archive since like 1999. I loved him as a prof, and loved this class! Finished with a 96 in the class. Work hard and you can do well easily.

Do the practice questions!!! For the first half i thought I could just get by doing well on the weekly quizzes and never paid attention to the practice questions and ended up failing the midterm. However, I did all of the practice questions by the end of the semester and ended up with a 70 overall. I had to take this in my first year, and a lot of first years ended up not doing so well on the midterm for some reason. Overall, if you put in the right amount of time and effort that helps you understand it you\'ll do well.

Most of the comments here say negative things about Umphrey but I am here to tell you different. Sure, he apparently doesn\'t spoon feed you all the info unlike Balka, but the thing he most excels at is that he posts a ton of previous midterms study material on courselink for you to go through. He literally posts dozens of midterms each and he additionally posted 120 previous final questions for the final prep. I went through 5 midterms before each test and aced them both (90/95). As long as you pull your own weight and do your allocated work, solve the midterms, keep up with the programming language \"R\", you WILL do good in the course. On the downside, like everyone said, his lectures are somewhat disorganized and difficult to follow especially in the later material of the course. I didn\'t have to use the textbook much, but it\'s still recommended that you buy it to grasp the concepts straight. If you take it with Umphrey, just make sure you teach yourself and go through the midterms and you will ace the course!

This course really isn\'t all that difficult or bad. Professor Umphrey just makes it terrible. His lectures are very disorganized and you\'re going to end up learning either by yourself and with a the textbook. One thing Umphrey does that is really nice however, is that he posts past midterms and finals on courselink that you can use to study from. A lot of Science majors need this course, it is passable, but if you can, I would recommend a professor other than Umphrey.

Really not that hard...I'm not getting where people are saying its the hardest course you'll take... Just spend time on it, take it with Balka, and all will be well. P.S. Summer courses are less of a pain, so just do it then...

Don't take this course unless you have to. It's not that difficult for some, but very difficult for others. Umphrey is very disorganized, always goes on topic and loses the attention of the class easily. His lecture notes are good though, if you manage to pay attention. If you don't understand something, sometimes the textbook is helpful but sometimes it just confuses you more. Don't expect to do well on the midterm. Probability is very tricky, and most of the midterm revolves around that. The assignment involves questions from the text usually so that is why you need the textbook, but it is pretty useless. Go to the first few labs because they are helpful for assignments but after the first 5 weeks they become a waste of time. Most TA's aren't very good. If you are having trouble: GET A TUTOR RIGHT AWAY. Most of my friends wished they had gotten a tutor sooner. Half of the people find this course very simple if you put the effort in. The other half have a lot of trouble with it.

Material is not that complex, but was not clearly explained in either lectures or textbook. Prof does not really have notes, and textbook differs slightly from his lectures. He posts a lot of old tests and gives sufficient time for assignments, but it is nearly impossible to learn all the material unless you have a tutor or spend hours a week studying outside of class. Assignments often lost marks because of decimal differences, were posted late and labs were usually useless. Very disorganized and confusing. Definitely don't take it with Umphrey if you can avoid it, Balka is supposed to be much better.

This class isn't so bad. However, not the greatest for strictly visual learners as he sometimes skips over a lot of steps. Lots of practice questions are made available, and he is quick to respond to questions (online and in person). The videos that he provides are also pretty funny (and helpful), too. If you do go see him, make sure you've tried to do the questions. He can can be a little impatient with people at times, but overall he is really friendly. Just do your work, don't talk in class, and turn off your cell phone. He's auditory, and annoying sounds when he's lecturing piss him off (understandably!). Midterms are fair, quizzes, and expectations are all fair.

Extremely easy course with Balka. You don't need to go to lecture at all. He posts a course textbook and if you just read through them you should be able to get all the information you need. Extremely easy course. Definitely nothing to fear.

This course is a challenge. Dr Umphrey did his best trying to make it as easy as possible, but for some reason, very few people managed to do well and found the course easy. You get cribsheets for the midterms, you get access to the past midterms, he always extends the due dates for the assessments (which are online Courselink quizzes based on problem sets he assigns each week), and there's the helproom and lab times. But I for some reason, never felt like I understood the material well enough. Had it not been for the crib sheet, I would have failed the midterm. I got a 73 only because some of the questions on the exam were variants of questions from past midterms that I had written onto my crib sheet. Umphrey is very sweet and even though his writing is hard to read when he works out solutions on the document camera, he really does care abotu students and makes class funny. I don't blame him for the difficulty of the course. I just think the material itself is so bland, and it's hard to explain in just a 50 minute lecture time. The mathematical aspect isn't difficult-it's knowing when to apply what formula/distribution type, and actually understanding the word problems. Regardless of the prof you have, this will be a pain in the butt, so it's best to get a tutor.

I feel like I'm the only one who didn't particularly enjoy Balka. His voice is irritating, and makes it seem like he's much too busy with other things than to care about students. He even missed an entire scheduled review session. Content-wise, the material isn't overly difficult to understand. Lectures aren't exactly mandatory (if you have Balka) since he posts the full notes online. Assignments are mainly based on the full notes. It's not that bad, but frig does Balka annoy me.

Had Umphrey for this course. Can't say I got much out of the lectures and his notes are not posted. He does however give you a lot of resources for midterms/finals with tons of old tests and a huge bank of questions/solutions for you to work on (highly reccomended). Assignments were easy for the most part. The textbook is garbage, completely useless. Do not waste your money. you need it for assignments and such so just use it from the library or borrow it from a friend. Don't fall behind or you'll be up until the early hours of the morning studying for the final.

Jeremy Balka is amazing. He makes lectures hilarious but is also very good at what he does so he makes all of the concepts easy to learn. The assignments are not hard and there is a lot of help offered. You can also approach him in his office for help and he is very willing to go over material or assignment questions. Term tests are very similar to the examples he provides and very similar to the assignments. Great course.

I took this course with Umphrey, and I really did not like it. The Material wasn't very difficult, but the course covers so many topics so superficially its difficult to really 'get' anything. The next course STAT*2050 is much better. Also, the textbook that they suggest you buy for this course is garbage, I would NOT buy it and recommend you just take it out from the library to do assigned questions and look for help elsewhere (such as the Math Stat help room, which has many helpful TAs)

If you dedicate the time to it .. it is NOT hard. The material is not that difficult, but there is a lot of it so you have to take the time to really understand it but a lot of it is similar to data management in high school.. If you can take it in the summer definitely do that! I actually really enjoyed the class.