STAT 3220

To do well in this course has to do more with ability to copy and paste, not organically producing outputs, understanding different functions, and general coding acumen. There is so much emphasis placed on all of the wrong things; getting the correct output is higher on the order of importance than understanding the output and its meaning/implications. I learned a decent amount in the class, but somehow it all felt unimportant/superfluous. I wish Krista cared slightly more about how she presents herself and comes off to students. She legitimately wears pajamas somedays, and will NEVER turn down an opportunity to complain to the class about students emailing her about grades.

This class utilizes the flipped-classroom structure where you are supposed to watch videos before coming to class. Once you come to class, you are supposed to ask questions and work through the classwork. Put simply, in a class of eighty kids, this just isn't effective, and this is DEMONSTRABLY true when you consider the results of the weekly in-class check ins. 1 to 5 on how confident students are with the material, 1 being not confident at all, 5 being super confident, and the average among a sample of ~150 students is usually around a 2, but for one reason or another, this never seems to concern Krista.

The final project is the best part of the class; it's interesting and you get free rein to do as you see fit with your data/research questions. Just follow the rubric incredibly closely, and you will probably do well, so long as you do not have any glaring mistakes elsewhere. Your final presentation is reviewed by a stat professor or a TA alongside other groups of students, and your score is an aggregation of what they think of you. For your sake, hope you don't get Ross; that guy is so disparaging and mean to presenters. He's very unhappy and incredibly impolite: yawning during people presenting, belittling them and their efforts, asking disingenuous questions, and berating their data, research methods, variable transformations, etc. He needs to find a new job.

All in all, the course has potential, but it kind of just stinks. You learn some stuff, but none of it feels that important. Getting the right outputs and making it look pretty is prioritized over understanding the outputs and what they mean for your data, which is evident by the copy-and-paste-from-the-notes-but-change-it-slightly-to-fit-the-variables nature of the exams (labs). The labs don't encourage critical thinking, coding acumen, or statistical understanding as much as they encourage rote dictation. The no late work policy is slightly annoying, only because sometimes there are issues with knitting/formatting and downloading to her EXACT specifications, but I am sure that is not going to change. All that said, it's easy to do well (B+ or better pretty easily) because she drops the lowest of every grade category.

Unless this class is required, do not take this class. Krista is a terrible professor and doesn't really care for her students or her job in general. This class is supposed to be a "flipped classroom". However, you do not really retain the information you learn from the instruction you do out of class. The videos she posts are not that helpful as she just reads off the slides for 20-30 minutes. In class, we work on our classwork that is usually due once every 2-3 weeks. Krista is extremely lazy when it comes to responding to emails or getting things graded on time. I had an issue with submitting one assignment due to knitting problems and it took 3 email attempts and 2 in-person visits for her to properly acknowledge the issue. She put in grades on Canvas during Thanksgiving break, which is a little too late to have an understanding of how well you're doing in class. The final project is interesting as you work in groups of 3-4 where you research a topic of your own and apply everything we have learned to the project. Another plus to taking this class is that attendance isn't mandatory. Overall, I do not recommend taking this class unless it is a requirement.

I am coming back and writing this review after two semesters because I realize how important this class is and how I lacked fundamentals. Regression is necessary for a lot of upper-level classes and possibly in the industry, and this class does not provide a solid foundation. This is likely because of the way the course is structured. I mean I think this class is an easy A but it doesn't reinforce the material and it is just assignments. Learning was shallow and surface-level. I ABSOLUTELY HATE that a flipped classroom was used for this because that is not how you learn a foundational class. Professor V is definitely organized, but she does not go above and beyond to teach concepts. I don't know man. I feel like the job of a professor is to answer questions and encourage curiosity. I don't think Professor V gave us many opportunities for that, maybe the project ig. The statistics department at UVA is not the best, so for your own sake please solidify your foundations with external courses because this class will not get the job done :(