PSYC 3310

Have you coded before? Like, in any capacity whatsoever? You have? Great! This will be the easiest A you will ever get. Show up to your zoom lecture for an hour once per week, and knock out your 2-3 hour (if that) coding assignment, and you're done! I fall into this category as a computer science major in the E-school (who also happens to be minoring in psychology). So, perhaps I am a bit biased, but this course has been incredibly easy.

You haven't coded before? Also great! This will also be a very easy class for you. The absolute hardest coding aspect of the course are probably if statements and for loops, and even those are not too bad (Don't worry if you don't know what that means yet. You do not even learn it until you are 2/3 into the course). The assignments are relatively simple, with most of the code you have to write being copy-pasted functions that the professor went over in class, or can be found in his example code he puts out weekly. All you need to change really are the values inside the functions, and let R do the rest -- super simple stuff. Even if you have zero coding experience going into this course, I would imagine that even the longest assignments would take no more than 5-6 hours at the absolute most. Most should fall in the 4-5 range for you. The only other thing you might need to watch out for is that at the end of the course we discuss some basic statistical analysis. Things like z-tests, one and two-sample t-tests, ANOVAs, stuff like that. You will have a bit easier time if you have taken some sort of stats class, but it really shouldn't be too hard because you really do not need to understand it that well --> just plus the right numbers in the right places in the R functions, and you're set! So, while a stats background would help and keep you less confused at the end of the course, you will be able to navigate it pretty easily even if you don't have that experience.

The grading is probably the only thing I'm not too big of a fan of. Your grade calculation is simple: 20% homework and 80% (Yes, EIGHTY!) assessments. You will have 10 weekly homework assignments, which will each count for a measely 2% of your grade each. However, there are only 2 assessments. One is the midterm, which is worth around 26.67% of your overall grade, and the final which is worth a whopping 53.33%. I am not a fan of this because, while the homeworks are a bit shorter than the assignments (I haven't taken the final yet, but the midterm was probably about twice the length of a typical assignment), to make just two assignments, that are in same format as the homeworks, worth so much is ludicrous to me. I say that to say this -- be very careful and check your work on your assessments. Those are points you cannot afford to miss, or you're in for a really bad time. To be clear, the assessments are not hard by any stretch, they are essentially glorified homeworks that cover all the topics you've learned to that point, AND they are open book. There is no reason you shouldn't do well -- just be warned: do not take them lightly, or you could regret it.

Lastly, as for Professor Meyer himself, he seems to be a really nice guy and always seems willing to help. I also find him to be a pretty solid lecturer. But, again, I might be biased being a computer science major and already understanding what is going on, for the most part.

TL;DR: This is a very easy course, ESPECIALLY if you have had coding experience of any sort in the past. If you are one of the select few who has the capability to get into the course (looking at you 4th year athletes, ROTC, and other specialty clubs that get enrollment priority. This course fills up FAST!), definitely take advantage of this slam dunk of a course. It is also something you can put on a resume that will look good to potential employers in the future.

class is a joke. if you are a CS major then you won't need to watch a single lecture because in class he just wastes time going over what functions do and you can just google everything while you work on your assignment. the assignments themselves are just homeworks which require 0 brain power since you're just applying functions that you learned in the lecture (or just google!) on the homeworks. the only downfall of this class is that you need a 96% to get an A. I didn't realize this til the end and ended up with a 95% and was pretty pissed that I didn't get an A. if you're looking for an easy class without literally doing anything then take this!

This class is incredibly easy and takes approximately 2 hours out of your entire week (1 hour of lecture plus 1 hour of work). Very easy. The midterm was harder than the final, but neither were particularly difficult. The professor is generous about partial credit on the exams such that I got a 96 or something on the midterm despite missing a few questions and a 100 on the final. The weekly homeworks are easy enough, but don't forget to try on them because an A in this class is a 96. This is very doable, but just don't slack off because of how easy everything seems.

Ridiculously easy classthat teaches you a lot about R and is pretty enjoyable. Lecture is online synchronous for an hour and fifteen minutes a week, but since they're all recorded, it is possible to watch them at your own pace if you want. Your grade is made up of 50% homeworks, 20% for the midterm, and 30% for the final. Most of the homeworks are easy and shouldn't take more than an hour/hour and a half to finish, but there are two or three of them that are a bit tricky and require a bit more time to complete. The midterm is long and takes a while to finish (you're given literally 2 weeks to work on it), but isn't very challenging. Given the unfortunate event that happened the week before Thanksgiving, Prof. Meyer (who is a great professor) made the final a sort of "dutch knockout", where the grade you got for the midterm can also be the grade for your final if you think it's high enough. I really enjoyed this class and highly recommend it!

TLDR: Easy content, you learn a lot, low time committment, great professor, and good TA. Take this class if you can! #tCFfall22