Mr. Xi is absolutely the worst lecturer I met in UVA. His lecture is so boring and cannot help you learn anything. I am a math-nerd and I have never not gotten an A on math course. But when it comes to him talking about maths, I don't understand even a single word. He is just bad at teaching. The course is an easy A if you can learn it on your own and has some background knolwedge about machine learning. But don't expect you can gain anything useful from Mr.Xi. Don't take this class if you don't want to waste your time. If you GPA is so low and need a course to boost it, you can try this one. But there are so many course that can boost GPA so I dont recommend this one. Just don't take it! It is the worst.