Richard Davis

Both midterms(each worth 20%) and a final(worth 40%) were very fair with a cheatsheet allowed. Professor Davis provides lecture slides with his notes, explaining proofs (they get v hard, but it was never a part of the exams) and giving application examples. Sometimes he likes to show simulations in R. Lectures were engaging, but his voice is very quiet and soothing, so I fell asleep quite a few times (10 am class). As far as I understood he curved median to a B+ ish.

This class is my major requirement, and I expected the content to be hard. Richard really did a good job in teaching and explaining (though the voice is kind of small). He is kind and patient in explaining, and give practice exams. also have curve...

As an undergraduate who took this class for practical reasons, I can say this: if you are not excellent at either statistics or rigorous math, expect a low grade in Davis' class (in the B/B+ range if you work hard). This is particularly painful because it's a six-credit class. That being said, if what is important to you is to understand the material thoroughly, and you're willing to suffer a little and get a low grade- take this class. Prof. Davis is an excellent lecturer. He teaches more or less out of the book, but is very clear and his examples are great. He also covers an unimaginable amount of material- partly by filling every minute of his three-hour lectures, and often going 5-10 minutes overtime (which can be exasperating, but I appreciate the fact that he's giving his students their money's worth). So after this class, you'll definitely feel that you've learned a ton. It should also be said that Prof. Davis is very nice and approachable. He has a kind of dry humor that may sound like a put-down, but he really wants his students to do well and was open to ideas. In this section (not sure if this is always true), indeed the vast majority (around 65/70 I'd estimate) were grad students in statistics, which definitely threw off the curve and made it very hard to get anywhere near the average on tests (not to mention homeworks, where the average was probably in the high 90…

Introduction to Statistics is not the sort of class that a stellar professor can make stellar. At best he can make it tolerable. Prof. Davis was the latter sort. He gave boring lectures punctuated by awkward and sweet-in-a-nerdy-way jokes and test that were just a tad too easy. He's probably the best you're going to do, but skip class anyway and read the book instead. Put every equation in the book on your cheat sheet. Trust me.

This course was a double-edged sword for me. I feel like my brain was both stimulated, and drained at the same time. For me, this was the hardest math/stats course I've ever taken (really the hardest course I've ever taken period). If you don't feel like/ don't have the time to spend hours on end studying, don't take this course. Before I get into the details of this, I will discuss the positives, which revolve around the professor. Professor Davis is a very kind, understanding, and funny person. It is very easy to tell that he has his students' best interests in mind and you can tell that he is very passionate about the material he's discussing. For the first exam, he noticed that everyone was quite stressed about the results and gave everyone the opportunity to either drop it or revise it for partial points back. He and his TAs (Alessandro and Victor when I took it) were extremely helpful during office hours and every question I had going in was answered by the time I left. Alessandro also hosted a couple of review sessions before exams which really helped me patch up my weak spots and highlighted where I needed to pay more of my attention. Now... with that said, this course was HARD. Homeworks were given weekly and were a little bit lengthy (about 8 problems, but many had multiple parts) with about 1/3 "easy" questions, 1/3 medium questions, and 1/3 hard questions. Overall,…

hI recommend taking this class with Professor Davis only if you are a master's student in the statistics department. The class is comprised almost entirely of master's students from China, which meant all the communication between the students in the classroom was in Chinese. It was class that this wasn't their first course in probability and statistics, despite this course not having any probability or statistics prerequisite, and this made the course very stressful for the few of us who were trying to learn the material for the first time. Lectures for this class went from 6:10 - 8:55 on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but Professor Davis usually ran about 10 minutes overtime. At the beginning of the semester, the lectures were completely understandable for students who didn't have background in the subject, as the material we covered at the beginning was simple enough: axiomatic probability, counting methods, conditional probability and Bayes' Theorem, continuous and discrete random variables ,and expectation. These were more or less the topics covered before the first midterm. The homework, which came straight out of the book for the entire semester, was very simplistic, with at least half the problems being silly and pointless one line computations. In other words, there really didn't seem like there was anything to worry about. Homework was assigned and due every lecture, but it…

10 problems in a problem set per week.Two midterms, both pretty easy.Final: Somewhat more difficult + longer.

Homeworks took about 15-20 hours a week for me, but the week before exams (particularly the last two) I spent day and night in the library. If you have a busy semester, I really don't recomment taking this course, wait for a lighter semester. You will learn a lot and I am grateful for the experience, but it was definitely stressful. Stochastic Processes are very cool and if you're really into probability theory I think you will really enjoy the course contents. Only take this course if you are prepared for a tough ride, if you do decide to take it, though, I think you'll be happy you did in the end.

20% HW for every class, difficult to do perfectly but not unreasonable or overly time-consuming. 20% each for two midterms: very tough, but if you know the problems from the book it doesn't have to be too bad. 40% final: wasn't too bad, but it covered so much material it was impossible to be on top of everything.

The grade was computed as follows: 20% Homework - The great majority of the class gets 100% on every assignment, so not getting perfect scores will negatively impact your grade in the class. 20% Midterm 1, 20% Midterm 2, 40% Final Exam - The different weights on the midterms and the final was strange because they all were three hour exams.