Statistics · Columbia University
My comments on 4109 in general as well as this particular class: If you can avoid taking 4109, do it. At all costs. Take 4105 and 4107. Not only will you have a more diversified group of students and therefore a more normal distribution of grades, you will have more time to actually learn the material (it's a lot!). In any given 4109 class, you'll find about 85-90% of the students are Chinese, half of which have already taken the material (maybe not all, but a majority of it) in their undergrad program. So don't plan on getting an A in this course unless you already know the material walking into the class on day 1. It's possible, but very difficult. Oh, and then there's the cheating. The MA Stats program is rife with cheating (the Chinese!), and this class was no exception. In every quiz or exam there was a constant flow of whisperings in Mandarin. Some of the more cavalier students even took out their cell phones to search topics or formulas during the actual test! Also, if you don't sit in the first few rows of the class, expect to want to punch half the students around you for constantly chatting (also in Mandarin). The professor can't hear them beyond the first few rows, so unless you mention the issue to him he won't do anything. My comments on Victor: When you boil everything down, Victor is considerate, fair, but a bit disorganized. The lectures consist of him putting…
I took Professor de la Pena's Intro to Stat Reasoning course in Fall 2011. I am not a math person, and this course is definitely easy in terms of what is learned if that is what you are looking for. However, while Professor de la Pena is very sweet outside of class, in the classroom it is very difficult to follow his lectures - he often got very nervous and would make mistakes, confusing not only himself but also the class in the process. My advice? Go to his office hours - literally no one would go, and I would get the benefit of getting help for the problem sets (usually he assigns one per week). Also the TA, Ben (I don't know if he'll be the TA again in Fall 2012), was helpful and his sessions were well-attended - he breaks down the concepts that are mentioned in lecture. You can get through this course, just know going into it that you will be confused by Professor de la Pena's lectures but that if you go to office hours and the TA's advising sessions then you will be fine.
He's a nice guy and tries to make sure everyone understands. Unfortunately for my class, this meant that we spent most of the time doing probability (4105 stuff) and didn't cover half of the material for statistical inference. He tried to hurry his pace and started using to present slides to save time from writing on the board. At some points, he showed pages from the book as well. Any material we didn't cover was assigned as a project or self study with homework. Also, there would be questions asked during class that he wouldn't be able to answer, more than any other class I've taken. The material is not any harder than 4105. The book by hogg and craig is fine. It's harder than Degroot & Schervish [4109] but easier than Casella & Berger [PhD book]
Victor de la Pena is dedicated and super friendly. He is always willing to explain even the simplest things in as many different ways as possible until everyone understands. He was a very fair grader and never put any surprises on tests, and I found him to be one of the nicest professors I've had so far. He seemed so happy to have people taking his class, and, even though I am not remotely interested in Statistics, I was very sad to leave his class. This class was not a breeze, but if you try to understand you will not end up with a terrible grade because he breaks everything down and makes it totally manageable.
Professor de la Pena's class was the worst academic experience I've had at Columbia. As (I hope) several other engineering students will attest, it was not the lack of basic math skills that caused the majority of this class to get stuck during lectures and problem sets. But don't assume the only problem was the A math major in the class told me before the final that he was lost too. Yes, Professor de la Pena is a nice person - he really *wishes* the class would understand what he's talking about, and he tries to help, but he's just not effective in conveying the material. He was so nice that when he realized that most of the class didn't understand what was going on, he made the midterm take-home. (Several students broke their agreement to work individually, resulting in a "binormal" distribution, with a mean in the 60s and another small cluster in the 90s. Otherwise there would have been very few high scores - on a straightforward take-home exam!) That brings us to the nature and content of the class. It's called "Probability Models" but should be called "Probability Theory." It's not very practical for scientists and engineers; we went over the derivations for a few of models, but didn't really get into their applications. The lectures were very theory-oriented, and he assumed a better background in theory than most students had. During an extra-credit presentation (another…
Although he's a very nice man and has the best intentions and teaches a class that SHOULD be easy, Professor de la Pena is a terrible teacher and will only help confuse you more about the material you read in the book. He also tries very hard to trip up students on quizzes and exams by throwing them curveballs. He doesn't realize that when most of the class is doing so poorly in introductory statistics, there's probably something wrong with the way the material is being taught. His grading system is also extremely annoying. Whoever was correcting the tests and homeworks just really enjoyed using their red pen and took off points when it was totally unnecessary.
Good class, but very, very challenging. It's billed as a Introduction, and it is, but it's very in-depth. The first few weeks of the class are deceptively simple, after that it ramps up quite a bit. de la Pena isn't interested in just having you apply statistics, he wants you to understand it deeply. As such, the class is proof heavy and requires a lot of time outside class to comprehend the material. Luckily, de la Pena is very approachable, and seems to want students to succeed. He will help you understand. All in all, a very good class, but well beyond the needs of many students.
Weekly homework (long), 3 quizes (1 pop-quiz, 2 announced), midterm, final, and a group presentation on a topic of our choice from the book.
I believe that Professor de la Pena is a good person and a great teacher. Yes, he has a distinct accent, but it did not prohibit us from understanding what he said. His lectures were clear, and he conveyed in the concepts in a simple, easy-to-understand manner. He definitely has a superb grasp on the material, and he enjoys teaching what he knows to his students. He is very approachable in the very rare event that anyone who has had basic math has a question. My problem with the class was that it seemed to lack students who had basic math skills. One student didn't seem to know how to calculate an average! I know I'm no math genious (after all, I'm in Intro to Stat REASONING), but I do know how to do basic addition and subtraction. The reason that I emphasize this point is that it really seemed to confuse the Professor (understandably) at times. There was no way to make his concepts simpler, yet some students still didn't get them. This might be the reason that some people didn't like him, but I think it is a sign of the students' inadequacies rather than the professor's. In short, take this class if you want a good general knowledge of statistics from a good professor.
Weekly homework, two tests, final, The scores for the midterm was lower than he would've liked so he introduced a new test to try to raise the class average.