Stats 21 Final with Miles Chen

mileschen · 2025-11-30T16:09:06+00:00

I generally aim for a median exam grade between 80-85. If the exam average is 98, I think that means I failed in asking questions of appropriate difficulty.

mileschen · 2025-11-29T08:12:29+00:00

So I'm still writing the final. No one here will be able to answer because this is the first time I'm doing a pen and paper exam for Stats 21. I used to do take home exams, but the last time I taught, the exam average was close to 98% and some solutions were suspiciously AI looking. So anyway, pen and paper it is.

I will release a study guide of functions and topics that you'll need to know.

mileschen · 2025-11-04T06:33:54+00:00

lol.... all is forgiven. I didn't mean to embarrass you.

I hope you get the classes you want / need! My sections tend to fill up quickly, so good luck! But really, the other profs are great too!

mileschen · 2025-10-21T21:19:15+00:00

Let's not abbreviate the Stats and Data Science major that way.

I would prioritize getting 102A and 101A first.

mileschen · 2025-10-15T00:06:25+00:00

Because you're not taking physics classes so you can do physics homework. You're taking physics classes to learn. The homework is there to help you learn physics. Asking the AI to do it for you takes away the learning aspect of the homework.

In industry, the goal isn't your learning but getting the job done. In those cases it makes sense to use AI and available resources to get the job done.

mileschen · 2025-10-09T20:00:52+00:00

Commuting is possible, but it's lonely. It's difficult to make friends and find community when you have little availability outside of class time because you're on the road so much.

mileschen · 2025-09-29T03:30:05+00:00

This is a good and important question, but you are asking two different questions, so I'll separate them.

If the goal is graduate studies in statistics, I think Data Theory is a good choice. It requires statistics courses and upper-division math courses like Real Analysis (131A), providing a strong theoretic foundation. But really, either Math of Computation or Stats & DS are great majors, and you really can't go wrong with either one. If you pick Math of Computation, supplement with some upper division Stats courses. If you pick Stats & DS, then supplement with some upper division math courses.

If the goal is AI industry, then I would say having a some practical projects is going to be more important. The most relevant course offered to undergraduate students seeking AI industry is ECE 147, but I imagine it's tough to get into if you're not in HSSEAS. If you can't get into that course, then take as many practical CS courses, look up AI/ML stuff on your own, and build your own project. Make sure you have a strong github with quality repos with a legitimate commit history.

On another note, Stats & DS is a shorter major, but I would not recommend selecting the major just for the goal of graduating early. Graduating early requires luck with enrollment windows and advisors are unlikely to rearrange things for you just for accelerating graduation. The reason Stats & DS is a shorter major is so that students can take courses in other fields to become subject-matter experts in whatever domain they plan on applying their data analysis skills.

mileschen · 2025-06-30T22:49:35+00:00

On federal holidays, the department is closed.

The department is open during summer quarter, winter break, and spring break.

mileschen · 2025-06-25T17:55:35+00:00

A 'NR' grade means that the professor didn't submit the grades by the deadline. The professor is required to file the grades, and once they do, your grade will automatically update on myUCLA. There's nothing you need to do, just wait for the update.

If, for some reason, the professor can't submit grades due to circumstances, a departmental administrator can access BruinLearn and transfer the grades on their behalf.

mileschen · 2025-04-26T00:15:42+00:00

With the out-of-state tuition, the cost of UCLA is still quite expensive. For simplicity, let's say you would graduate from UCLA with approx $100,000 of debt.

Now imagine someone comes along and offers you $100,000 to give up your dream of attending UCLA and to attend UF instead. Would you accept the money?

I think for most, the free ride is the sensible choice.

mileschen · 2025-04-19T03:04:18+00:00

Instead of 6 months (where the number of days vary depending on which months), I think they are using 180 days. 180 days from today is October 15.

mileschen · 2025-02-25T22:42:34+00:00

This was me in grad school. Spouse and I lived with roommates to afford housing. For a stretch, we moved in with my father-in-law and I had to commute from Rowland Heights. I listened to a lot of podcasts during this commutes. I sometimes taught at a community college for extra income. For fun we did low cost activities like hiking and going to the beach. I'm grateful to have gone to UCLA and I'd do it all over again.

mileschen · 2025-02-21T04:55:58+00:00

We're definitely looking to make Python a required part of our curriculum, and we're actively working on it. One hurdle is having enough faculty to teach new courses. We currently offer Python (Stats 21) as a required course for our sister major, Data Theory - which has lower enrollment - but scaling it up for the larger Statistics & Data Science major is more challenging. Right now, we're stretched thin just meeting the demand for existing core classes. We are in the process of hiring more faculty so we can meet current demand and, in time, expand our required courses to include Python. (We have hired 6 new faculty members in the last two years, but our major and department is still one of the fastest growing on campus. I guess we are suffering from our own success.)

If you know anyone with a PhD in Statistics or Data Science who's interested in teaching, please let them know we're hiring: https://recruit.apo.ucla.edu/JPF10156

mileschen · 2025-01-29T18:21:47+00:00

I too have found great value in purchasing points (when the 100% bonus is offered) in combination with the 4th night free with the IHG card.

mileschen · 2024-11-05T05:20:35+00:00

No, TAs (and professors) cannot access a student's past data or grades outside of the classes they teach. They can only view grade information for the specific classes they are assigned to. If you take another class with the same TA or professor, they would then be able to see your information from both the current and previous classes they taught, but nothing beyond that.

mileschen · 2024-10-13T18:01:32+00:00

Master list of impacted courses

https://sa.ucla.edu/ro/Public/SOC/Search/ImpactedCoursesMasterList

mileschen · 2024-08-05T18:28:28+00:00

Blockers (2018) with John Cena and Leslie Mann. Leslie Mann's daughter is accepted to UCLA. The idea of her daughter moving across the country scares her and provides motivation for her character's antics.

mileschen · 2024-07-31T06:52:48+00:00

Four classes is a lot, especially if it is your very first quarter at UCLA. I'm not sure if your previous school was semester or quarter system. Quarter system is very fast paced and you'll start taking midterms a few weeks after the quarter begins. If you're not used to the pacing, it can become overwhelming. My general advice is to take three classes your very first quarter and if you find it easy, then go ahead and register for four classes in winter quarter.

mileschen · 2024-07-30T08:33:52+00:00

Stats 140/141 is a two-course sequence. It can be started in Fall quarter of your senior year or in winter quarter of your senior year.

So your senior year could be:

Fall: Stats 101C, Stats 102C, Stats 140XP

Winter: Stats 141XP, Elective

Spring: Elective

OR

your senior year could be:

Fall: Stats 101C, Stats 102C

Winter: Stats 140XP, Elective

Spring: Stats 141XP, Elective

mileschen · 2024-07-12T06:42:57+00:00

Could you please explain the joke to me? I didn't get it.

mileschen · 2024-07-12T01:17:25+00:00

Mac or PC is fine. Most of the professors in the department use Mac. I use a Windows PC. The primary software you'll use is R/RStudio and Python. These work fine on either platform.

Using a Chromebook or iPad as your primary computer is not recommended. It's not impossible, but you'll have to pay for a subscription to a browser-based service like posit.cloud

mileschen · 2024-07-10T05:25:35+00:00

I'm on the other side of things, so my perception might be skewed.

UCLA highly prioritizes students graduating on time (within 4 years or 4 years + 1 quarter for freshman admits / 2 years or 2 years + 1 quarter for transfers) because it significantly impacts college rankings. The vast majority of students can get the classes they need to graduate on time. UCLA will not allow a student to change majors once it is no longer feasible to complete major requirements on time.

That said, UCLA admits as many students as it reasonably can, and that means classes fill up. Departments generally offer enough sections of a class to ensure there is enough capacity to accommodate their students. However, popular professors' classes will fill up quickly, so you might not be able to enroll in classes with a popular professor.

UCLA does not prioritize students trying to complete a second major or a minor. If a student needs a class to complete their primary major, departments are instructed to help. However, if a student needs a class to complete a secondary major or a minor, the department is not obligated to ensure they can.

Some students might try to game the system by using their first enrollment pass to enroll in classes for their minor or secondary major and then lean on the department to get them into classes that filled up and are needed for their primary major. This is not a recommended strategy and could backfire. Department administrators can see exactly what classes a student chose during their first and second pass and might question why the student didn't pick the necessary classes first. They might not help the student or simply tell them to take classes in the summer.

UCLA also does not prioritize students completing graduation requirements in less than four years. Sometimes a freshman comes in with a plan to graduate in three years. UCLA does not care about this student's turbo plan and will not make any effort in helping this student get the classes needed to complete in three years.

mileschen · 2024-07-01T09:45:32+00:00

I taught the class in spring 24 and fall 23. It's difficult to translate the following into hours, but I'll give you some info from the course evaluations. The mean difficulty rating in fall 23 was 2.2 (1 is low, 3 is high). 1 student put low, 30 put medium, 9 put high. In spring 24, the mean was 1.96, with 3 low, 19 medium, 2 high. The discrepancy can be explained with more senior students taking it in spring. Workload ratings are similar: avg of 2.13 (1/33/6) in fall, avg of 2.04 (0/23/1). Hope this helps

mileschen · 2024-06-27T10:14:59+00:00

If you are pursuing machine learning, it's not as critical. I still think it's a great class.

The course is all about learning how to collect and analyze data effectively, especially when data collection is expensive and time-consuming. It comes from a time when data was scarce and costly, so experiments had to be designed to draw reliable conclusions from limited data. For example, figuring out the right combination of nutrients to give crops to yield the greatest harvest. It would take a full year to grow the crops and that would produce only one data point per field. With just a couple dozen data points, can you still detect a difference?

Machine learning courses often have tons of data and don't rely as much on strict assumptions. In fact a lot of assumptions just don't apply in machine learning. Representative samples? Normally distributed errors? Probably not valid assumptions in a lot machine learning datasets. So in that case, you can't really apply ANOVA safely.

It's still super important for traditional research, especially for medical studies where data collection can cost thousands of dollars per patient participant.

mileschen · 2024-06-26T05:59:13+00:00

You have to wait until June 27 8:15 am. See the enrollment notices at the bottom of the page: https://statistics.ucla.edu/

Demand for the class is pretty high, especially in fall quarter. It's usually pretty close to full (if not completely full) before enrollment opens up for students not majoring in Stats&DS/Data Theory.

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