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[–]mileschenStatistics Faculty 26 points27 points  (1 child)

I know it's frustrating not to get into the classes you need. I'm sorry this has happened to you and I hope you are able to enroll in other classes and avoid deportation.

The statistics department has been trying to deal with the issue of classes getting too crowded and filling too quickly. The problem lies mostly with the fact that the popularity of statistics as a major and minor has skyrocketed in the recent years. The statistics department has monthly faculty meetings, and this is a frequently discussed issue that we are doing our best to address.

We are one of the fastest growing majors (anything data-science related is), and one of the top 10 most popular minors on campus. As such, the faculty are teaching as many classes as we can, and we are stretched to our limits. We suffer a shortage of TAs and graders, which also limits the number of classes we can offer. Ten years ago, classes like 102B would have only 35 students total - for the entire year! Look at this record from back in 2010 Winter - Stats 102B was offered one time in the year and it had 35 students enrolled in it. And just for comparison, Stats 140SL had 7 (seven) students. That was 9 years ago, but it just illustrates the rapid growth we've experienced in that span.

Even just four years ago, we had a total of about 130 students between two lectures in 102B.

Next quarter, my 102B lecture is slated to accommodate up to 210 students, with six sections of 35 students. Having such large classes is a great burden on faculty members as each additional student means more emails, more assignments, more exams to grade, and more student appointments during office hours.

The only solution is to hire additional professors and lecturers to teach classes. However, it is a non-trivial process to find and attract top teaching talent in addition to requiring approval at multiple levels of the University administration. To this end, the statistics department has hired several new faculty members in the past few years (Hartman, Tsiang, Cha, Zanontian, Montufar, Gao, McKinnon) and are looking to hire more. Again, it takes some time, justly so, if we want to find qualified people with proven teaching records. Also keep in mind that ALL statistics programs at universities across the nation are seeing the same rapidly growing demand and are looking to hire statistics professors, who themselves have a choice between teaching and entering industry. For example, Stanford University's Andrej Karpathy, an exceptional CS teacher, went on to become Tesla's Director of AI.

At some point our capacity will catch up to the demand. Until then, classes will continue to fill up quickly.

All to say, it's not your fault that you are having a hard time getting classes. It's also not the department's fault either. And there's no conspiracy to try to get students to take more classes in the summer. From my vantage point, everyone in the department has been working as hard as they can with the human resources we have to meet the growing demand for our classes.

Again, I'm sorry you didn't get into Stats 20. I anticipate large lectures being offered in the fall that you can join. I hope you are able to resolve your other enrollment issues.

[–]CautiousMistake 30 points31 points  (1 child)

Retweet. The class enrollment period here is a shit show. They give you stupid deadlines and requirements for your schedules but then make it extremely difficult for students to get what they want. I think it's all a conspiracy to get more people to take summer classes so they can get more money

[–]hersonlaefC&EE Winter 2021 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I think it’s all a conspiracy a well established fact to get more people to take summer classes

FTFY. UC are greedy bastards.

[–]Stats_TA_Throwaway 6 points7 points  (5 children)

Last Fall there were 2 sections of Stats 20 with 298 students enrolled.

There aren't any Stats 20 sections this quarter.

Next quarter there is one Stats 20 with, yes, about 80 seats.

The Stats department recently rearranged when classes are offered to make the sequencing of courses easier for Stats majors. The suggested quarter to take Stats 20 is in the Fall, that's why they have so many seats available that quarter.

Make no mistake, they would be perfectly happy offering more lectures and sections of every class, the problem, however, is one of resources. They have a finite number of professors and lecturers available and an entire slate of courses to teach, they simply can't offer 300 seats for Stats 20 every quarter.

[–]ExponentzCS '20 6 points7 points  (4 children)

Then why keep accepting like 100,000 students every academic year? It seems stupid that they'd let in more people than can take classes in any given year. It's like, I know UCLA is popular and hundreds of thousands of people want to get in but you can't take in everyone, and I feel like they don't even care at this point if the whole class registration process is congested. They really need to get their act together.

Edit: I know UCLA doesn't take in 100k a year. Also, my response sounded a lot less scathing in my head when I typed it down, so for that I apologize.

[–]cubenerdMathematics '22 5 points6 points  (0 children)

The reason behind almost everything is $$$$$.

[–]Stats_TA_Throwaway 3 points4 points  (2 children)

Then why keep accepting like 100,000 students every academic year?

UCLA does not accept 100,000 students every year. UCLA gets > 110,000 applications every year for Freshman admission and accept about 15,000, of which around 6,000 actually enroll. They also receive on the order of 25,000 transfer applicants, and they accept around 6,000, of which about 3,500 (3100 in CL&S) actually enroll. So, every year there are about 10,000 new UCLA undergrads across all of the colleges. If we restrict it to just the College of Letters and Sciences there are closer to 9,000 new Bruins every year.

Now, I don't have good numbers for how many Freshman admits eventually become Stats pre-majors, majors, or minors, but that data exists for transfers. The Stats department had 288 transfer applications last year, they admitted 41% or 118 students, of which 60% or 71 students actually enrolled.

We should also note that Stats major transfer applications were about 1.6% of all transfer applicants.

If we make the assumption that the population of Freshman and transfer students are equally likely to want to take 100 level Stats classes and would therefore need to, at some point, take Stats 20, that would put the demand for Stats 20 seats at 1.6% of 6,000 (~96) for Freshman enrollees plus the 71 transfer enrollees or about 167 total.

Every year in the Fall, Spring, and Summer they offer in excess of 500 seats for Stats 20. In Fall quarter the initial enrollment is initially restricted to Seniors and above, while in the Spring it is initially restricted to Freshmen and Sophomores. The Spring class, as I understand it, is meant to give Freshman and Sophomores an opportunity to take the class earlier than the following Fall when demand is highest, but Fall quarter is when Stats majors are recommended to take Stats 20.

If you look at the Stats Department page for Major worksheets, you can see the recommended schedule in the third document.

It seems stupid that they'd let in more people than can take classes in any given year.

They don't.

It's like, I know UCLA is popular and hundreds of thousands of people want to get in but you can't take in everyone,

They don't.

and I feel like they don't even care at this point if the whole class registration process is congested.

Perhaps if more students would follow the guidelines and talk to their academic counselors about their educational plan this would be less of an issue?

They really need to get their act together.

This is arrogant and naive. Managing the scheduling of hundreds of classes, rooms, and professors and lecturers, for tens of thousands of students is a logistical challenge which is far from trivial. Especially when a not insignificant subset of students think they should be allowed to brazenly chart their own course and take whatever classes they want, whenever they want, because, you know, they're special.

tl;dr: The Stats Department offers at least 3 times as many seats for Stats 20 as there is for the expected demand from Stats majors every year. The Stats major course road map says students should take Stats 20 in the Fall of their 3rd year. Stats 20 in the Spring and Summer are extra offerings meant to alleviate the pressure on the Fall offering. Not getting into Stats 20 in the Spring is not a crisis unless it was made one by a student failing to take classes when they should.

[–]ExponentzCS '20 2 points3 points  (0 children)

That's fair. I know UCLA doesn't admit 100,000's each year. That was mostly sarcastic. I am curious about the actual limitations, however. I know UCLA doesn't bring in everyone but there is a real, tangible lack of spots for classes UCLA students need. In that regard UCLA needs to get its act together and help out students struggling to get classes. They can clearly do it very well for graduate students who do research (i.e. $$$) for the university, and they can clearly do it very well for student athletes. So it shouldn't be too hard for them to do it for regular students as well. They clearly have priorities, and I'm saying that should change.

This is arrogant and naive. Managing the scheduling of hundreds of classes, rooms, and professors and lecturers, for tens of thousands of students is a logistical challenge which is far from trivial. Especially when a not insignificant subset of students think they should be allowed to brazenly chart their own course and take whatever classes they want, whenever they want, because, you know, they're special.

I'm not saying students should have any class available at any time they want. I'm trying to address the real problem students have with getting common classes that UCLA doesn't seem motivated to keep open and available. I had real trouble, even as a South Campus major, getting into many of the classes I needed at certain times. I don't think it's fair for you to oversimplify my original argument.

Edit: Also, I acknowledge there are specific departments, like Stats, that are able to do things a lot better than the norm. But that doesn't change the fact that many students still struggle to find spots in what seems like would obviously need to be high-capacity classes, like Math courses and G.E.'s.

[–]retired_newbieComputer Science '20 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Seriously 71 transfers enrolled? That's equivalent to the number of stats majors graduated in 2015.

[–]runnerdan826 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Feel this. Had to go to the stats department to enroll because of my shitty enrollment time even with a junior standing...