STAT 1601

Prof. Afriyie is still fairly new to UVA and reviews from his first semester here reflected that, but he seems to have caught his footing. Prof starts off class with a fun story from his week or life in Ghana and makes a lot of jokes during class. He usually let us out a few minutes early and always stayed behind for questions. Afriyie does a lot of live coding in class, but has a powerpoint to give an overview of the concepts. While class focused a lot on using and implementing functions, the exams are super conceptual (you don't really write any code) and you have to memorize what all the functions do. There were one or two questions on the exams that were tricky, but he ended up curving the exams. There were 8 homework assignments and he dropped our lowest grade. He releases homework a week before it is due and he will tell you if the material he is going over in class is on the homework. Prof posted all the notes and code on Collab, and attendance was not mandatory. Also, be sure to make friends in this class because you can choose to work with a group on the final project. I'm usually not one to like going to lecture and but I really enjoyed this class. I should disclose though that I am a CS major, and only took this class because I needed another 3 credits. If you have no previous coding experience, you might find this class challenging in the beginning. Prof isn't trying to make this class exceptionally difficult and will take the time to explain anything. Don't be afraid to ask questions in class, and if you have any questions on the hw make sure you go to his OHs or set up an appointment with him.

Such a kind and understanding professor. It is evident he really cares about his students and he is very helpful in office hours.

After reading the reviews for this professor from the fall semester, I was worried about taking the class. After taking the class, it is clear that Professor Afriyie took his reviews to heart and made good improvements in his class. He was super nice and kind, always asking us how are lives are, even if nobody answered. His online pre-recorded lectures were super cute, he would sometimes stop for a couple seconds and tell us to go outside and get fresh air (I never did and just kept listening but it was nice to have him be cognizant of his students' mental health). The class is just a lot of coding, and he isn't the best at explaining concepts, but if you approach him for help, he is super nice and helpful. I was worried about the final project because my friend had told me how harshly hers was graded, but I ended up with a pretty good grade on it. It was also kinda fun to do. The homeworks can be time consuming at times, but for the most part are pretty easy to get a 95-100 on each of them. Would recommend this professor.

I would recommend this class if you are looking for an easy STATs class however I would not say it is a guaranteed A class. The professor was so kind and caring towards his students and wanted to get to know us. In class he would ask us about our days to the whole class and would pause often to ask if anyone had any questions. He often talks about his cute little son during class and even used him in an example in class. In the shift to online, he would put clips in the middle of the lectures telling his students to go outside and breath or to go on a short walk which I appreciated so greatly. I did not find the coding in R that difficult as I had prior experience coding being a CS major however I do not think that people without experience would struggle as the professor explains things at a slow pace that may make the class seem even slow at times. The lectures are also not mandatory except for of course exam dates. The homeworks assigned every week took me not too long to complete as I often completed them in one sittings and I would suggest going to TA office hours after as the TAs will often tell you if you did a question incorrectly and how you should instead do it so it is almost a 100 guarantee on the HW. However I will say that the exams are not super easy and do requires studying in order to do well on. Additionally the final project at the end of the semester required a lot of time and dedication as it encompassed things that we have learned throughout the entire semester. I would still recommend this class because it was definitely manageable and is low stress for the most part.

Prince is such a nice professor and was so understanding when we had to switch classes online due to covid-19. The tests were very reasonable and the first one was curved, and he graded generously on our final project. Overall I would definitely recommend for people who want to take a coding class because Prince is a great guy and I definitely wouldn't say its difficult to do well in his class.

This class is a good way to learn the basics of a programming language without a lot of stress. The professor is very nice and approachable and makes an effort to answer students' questions. The weekly homeworks are not hard, but the exams are much trickier than expected because they can have super specific questions. There's also a final research paper, which is not difficult but takes a fair amount of time to complete. Overall, the class felt useful and is not stressful as long as you put some effort into doing the HW and studying for the exams.

Prince is such an accommodating professor! He genuinely cares about every single one of his students, and made this stat class very doable. I had no prior coding/stat experience going into this class, but he made himself available and had great TAs that responded to my emails very quickly when I needed help. The homework assignments were not hard, and you had a week to do each one. I'd recommend emailing the TAs with questions about them because you're almost guaranteed a good grade if you ask for clarification and help. These assignments are 30% of your grade, so it's important to do well on each one (Prince drops the lowest one). The exams were not super easy, as there were some specific questions, but they weren't super hard. He wasn't against curves either, he curved our first exam, and was open to doing it on one of our homework assignments. The final project isn't hard, it's lengthy and takes time, but working in a group makes it doable. Take this class!! Prince is the best

I absolutely loved this class, and I have to give most of that credit to Prince! As some other people have said, I was worried about taking the class after reading some of the reviews about the fall, but it goes to show that he was willing to take the reviews to heart. I took STAT 2120 before it required the coding portion, so I thought it would be interesting to take this class. I really struggled in 2120 because of all the equations that we had to know and the difficult concepts, but in this class R is SO helpful! In lectures, Prince breaks it down by showing a slideshow and also doing live coding. I ended up taking screenshots of the coding and inserting them into my notes which helped tremendously. There was no required reading, and the only thing you have to do each week is the HWs which count for 30% of your overall grade. I recommend you work with friends or find other classmates, as well as consult with the TAs; they are there to help! The HWs really are not hard, but just make sure you are paying attention, take good notes, and get help when needed. When we switched to online classes, Prince was very accommodating and his videos were easy to comprehend. He also was cognizant about not making them too long, and he would remind students to take breaks in the middle of them which I loved. The final project required a decent amount of time, but as long as you communicate with you're group and understand the material, you should be fine. I also didn't find exams to be that hard, again as long as you know what you are doing in R and especially for the second exam, you have to understand the statistical concepts more in depth. The first half of the semester is a lot more coding than statistics itself, but the second half is both so it can be more difficult. Prince is such a sweet man and I really loved this class. It is not necessarily an easy A, but if you do what is required and stay on top of understanding the material, you will do well! Definitely take it if you have the chance!

Prince Afriyie is a really cool instructor and did his best to make online lectures bearable. He would always suggest little breaks during the asynchronous recordings and show super cute pictures of his son. Assignments in this class (1x per week) were usually pretty easy, especially if you take notes during lectures. However, the 2 exams were nothing like these assignments. All the questions on those were really conceptual and not practical uses of R. This class is necessary for the psych major, so there's no real way to avoid it and maybe it's easier in person, but overall I didn't learn much and this class hurt my GPA.

Professor Afriyie's online lectures were very entertaining, I had to double speed him most of the time but overall, the information was interesting if you have no prior knowledge of R. Towards the last half of the semester, my AP Stat background really helped and just had to focus on learning the code versus also learning statistical concepts. In terms of grades, 20/20 for all homework since it was relatively easy if you paid attention and took good notes. Tests are straight froward. Group project also doable. Recommend this course for anyone interested in data science and statistics.