This is probably the most intimidating class for MS or PhD students. Tianxi undoubtedly adds to the intimidation. He is very bright and comes across as this genius professor who doesn’t care about his students. His lectures were dry and very theoretical which made them difficult to comprehend. Homeworks in this class are difficult and require several hours over a few days. The midterm was extremely difficult. The average was around 78 with a standard deviation of almost 17, but he did end up curving this exam. The final exam is as difficult an exam as has ever existed. Fortunately he gives a practice exam for both the midterm and the final and they generally are a good measure of how well you will do on the exam. The lone bright spot of this class was the generosity and compassion that Tianxi showed when dealing with the aftermath of the shooting. He gave us a free 100% on one homework assignment and he gave us an optional bonus assignment that added 10% to our grade. This basically acted like a huge curve which was very useful because of how difficult the exams were. Despite this, Tianxi is not a good instructor, he is clearly knowledgeable, but he needs to design this course in a way that allows more students to learn more efficiently. Overall, an extremely challenging course that is required for MS and PhD students.

#tCFfall22