1.8
Quality3.9
Difficulty21%
Would Retake127
Reviews21%
Would Retake
127
Reviews
Rating DistributionOfficial
127 total ratings5
9
4
10
3
6
2
21
1
81
What Students Say
“One of the top 2 worst professors I've had at UW-Madison”
Stat240 - 1.0 rating“there is no any logic in bi's class”
Stat340 - 1.0 ratingClass Info
Online Classes
100%
Attendance Mandatory
2%
Textbook Required
0%
Grade Predictor
Your expected effort level
Predicted Grade
B+
Grade Distribution
Common Tags
Rating Trend
Stable
-0.10 avg changeRatings by Course
STAT324
5.0
(1)Stat324
3.0
(2)Stat240
1.9
(74)Stat340
1.6
(30)Stat301
1.4
(14)Difficulty by Course
STAT371
5.0
STAT333
4.5
Stat301
4.1
Stat340
4.1
Stat324
4.0
Reviews (126)
Lectures are all recorded and are well organized and focus heavily on live coding demos but cover general concepts well too. All graded work is take-home/open note, but it all takes a long time. Just stay on top of the content and be prepared to spend a lot of time on homework and you'll be fine.
Bi himself is very caring and understanding. He is very lenient towards late work and is very accommodating to any students who run into issues while taking his course. The one problem with Bi is that there were very few projects and homework-so while you might think it is a good thing, it makes studying for exams and being prepared very difficult.
not good
Bi was a breath of fresh air after dealing with the Math department for the last two years! He always responded to student questions and made learning stats easy. I appreciate how in depth he went into the material to make sure it was easy to understand. Bi allowed notes and R (stats programming language) on tests which helped a ton. Great class.
I was genuinely surprised by the quality of his lectures. Heard the class was hard but he made everything super clear and went over every detail. Ecen though its a stats class the most important part is understanding the conceptual stuff well. If you can analyze the details of a scenario and relate them to the different equations then it is easy.
Took Professor Bi for Stat 240 and it was a great first introduction to programming in R and statistics in general. In lectures he does live coding demos, so you can try to follow along with him or just read along in the notes. Compared to current Professor I have for stat 340, I would choose Bi 100/100 times.
Didn't really pay attention to lecture and just read the notes provided and got a A in the class. Overall, Professor Wu knows and teaches the content well, but gets through it FAR too slowly, making the class incredibly boring. The homeworks also take several hours to complete each week as well.
Instructor Wu is not capable to explain things well. The logic of the lecture is unclear, and he is fond of skipping materials. If you ask him to explain anything more in detail, he will just tell you that you are not required to know it. He doesn't care about any academic dishonesty, but he always feels extremely satisfied with himself.
Bi is a wonderful professor. I've learned a lot about R code and stats. My one thing is that it's kinda hard to study for in-person exams.
He is a totally tough grader. He will take points off even if it is a very trivial point. For example, he will take points off if you don't use an appropriate word out of a 12 pages project report. Also, he doesn't reply to emails on time.
Bi's lectures were very scattered and he would skip over material often. He is pretty generous about giving students a lot of time for assignments which was nice. He was, however, condescending to students during the research project for this class, and very nit-picky.
There is absolutely no need to attend his lecture
I truly do not recommend this professor, as he treats students with a lack of courtesy and always speaks to them in a condescending manner. He responds to emails slowly and has a poor attitude. Additionally, he enjoys nitpicking and tends to make a big deal out of small issues.
He is just very unprepared and rude. Does not respond to emails well at all.
You do not need to attend his lecture and you can learn it well by yourself. Does not care his students and very rude and mean to everyone for no reason.
wow tough guy
Lecture attendance is not necessary at all as he records and uploads all of them. Some people here are saying he's rude when in reality I would just say he's blunter than people are used to but nothing excessive. He's very accommodating for late homework and exam rescheduling. I wouldn't say he's my favorite professor, but he's very fair.
Sometimes, he refuses to admit that he's wrong. He can also be unfriendly at times if you try to explain why you disagree with him. His lectures are not that great either (pretty average), but they are recorded! The recorded lectures really help!
I have taken 2 classes with Bi, Stat240 and Stat340 and he is good. He records all his lectures and post his notes, so you do not need to go to lecture if you don't want to. Not everything is explained perfectly, but I think his homework and exams are fair, and I have never found him to be condescending like many of these ratings say.
Bi is definitely a good professor and I'm not sure where all these bad ratings came from. In Stat 240, his lectures are always clear and easy to follow. He also records every lecture and posts online. My only complaint would be that I wish he made his own notes, and didn't use the same ones as the other teachers, since he doesn't always follow them
Bi is truly a kind and generous person, demonstrating genuine care and concern for his students' well-being.
Bi could've been a bit more organized during lectures, but he's still good at explaining concepts and answering questions. He seems quite nice, so I can't say I found him to be rude like some other reviewers have mentioned. I found the homework and exams to be fair and not overly challenging, and I learned a great deal during the semester.
The final of this course was during the earliest during the final week, yet results were given on the grading ddl day. Given the extremely hard final and no explanation of the cut-offs, had to guess that the prof just didn't want us to argue or ask any questions about grades. Don't take this course, cuz your hard work will be wasted.
As the previous comment mentioned, he did not explain the final grades or give any chance to argue for them. The final was extremely hard, if you shrewd it up, then you also shrewd your overal grade. The lectures were lacking structures, you would see he keep typing in R and lacked conceptual explanation, and explanations would be tested.
Professor Bi is an awesome professor for 240. I have had a lot of R experience before, so I could see how this class might feel really fast-paced if you haven't seen R before. That being said, Professor Bi is always open to questions, and is more than happy to go over things again if someone doesn't understand. All around great professor!
The final exam was too lengthy and difficult for the class given the materials we were given to study. The professor was unwilling to discuss final grades or even show the final exam to his students after grades were released.
I thought the course was very easy because I took AP Stats in high school. Bi was a fine teacher but not great. He read his lectures off of old HTML documents knit from R files, so lectures weren't very interesting or engaging. I appreciated that I learned some R in this course though.
I thought the class was going ok, I put in the work, studied hard, and got decent grades. However, the final was ridiculously hard and nothing like we ever did in class. Grading was absurdly unfair & the other section of the class had the same test but a way higher curve and different grade thresholds.He was unwilling to discuss these matters.
hw and discussions weren't bad at first but all of a sudden it was very difficult for no reason. It's always odd when courses repeatedly state they do not expect you to have previous knowledge; that it is a beginner course yet throw the most ridiculously hard stuff at you that only someone WITH previous knowledge could actually do in one sitting.
Lectures are a drag
Choose any other professor or switch your major. Exams are unnecessarily hard - he writes them with the intent to confuse students + trip them up. Lectures are boring and disorganized. The only resources are things from the internet or HTML documents. Demeaning during office hours and has no enthusiasm for speaking to or helping students.
Take this in summer , the worst experience ever. Lecture is useless, take little care during exam.
His biggest flaw is that he confidently makes mistakes which is detrimental to the student's learning. The grading rubric is not comprehensive enough. So, a part of your grade will be at his discretion.
Good prof during lecture, not great during office hours. During lecture hes friendly, has a laid back personality, and acts happy to answer questions and spend more time explaining some of the more difficult material. He is a completely different person during office hours. The few times I met with him he was rude and couldn't care less. Dudes fake
His lectures are him reading from the online textbook. He doesn't prepare at all for class. Homeworks were fine, exams were straightforward. The class is more challenging if you don't have any coding experience, but if you already know some coding, it'll be fine. All lectures were recorded which was nice.
His lecture is basically reading the html file. During his office hour, he is not as patient as he showed in the class. There's no possibility to argue the score cause he would't admit it even if he made a mistake.
My life will be much easier if I can be as unapologetic as him.
awful
The course is not well-organized, not to mention the lecturer is super rude and mean. Probably the worst experience I've ever had in Madison
Ugh I dun even know where to start...
- Weekly homeworks took 3-4 hours at most for me, definitely wasn't a huge time commitment, problems are fair and similar to those done in lecture - Lectures are recorded - Midterm was pretty hard but questions were fair - I know a lot of people hate the project but I find it interesting - Bi is very helpful in lecture (Never been to office hours)
I disagree with the hate. His lectures are ok, I always showed up in person and was able to get some conceptual understanding out of them. The class is well organized, and it is easy to get help if you seek it early enough. Workload was very reasonable, however the take home section of the midterm exam this year was hard and tanked my grade.
In the first class, Bi stated that you do not need any R background to enroll. I had no previous R experience, yet he still spoke in a very condescending way whenever I asked for help. When you have to start a sentence with "not to be mean, but..." then you probably shouldn't say it at all.
It's not funny, it's ridiculous
Bi makes so many noises in the microphone to the point where it was distracting. He burps and clears his throat almost every minute. Besides that his lectures are about as worthless as they get. He reads off the notes (which he provides) and adds absolutely nothing to them.
His lecture notes are the most ILLOGICAL notes I've ever seen. As a statistician (probably), he cannot even standardize the symbols he uses.
Lectures were boring and just reading off of an html file. Midterm (being 30%) of our grade was horrendous as the average was 10/20. There is no real help for preparing for the final or midterm because he only gives us access to the previous terms. Going into office hours is a joke, he is very demeaning and doesn't care to help. He's unpleasant.
I took him for both 240 and 340. Bro you are going to get rekt. His notes are abstract and his tests are really hard for no reason. They are just absurdly hard and no college student should have to take a test this hard. He uses terms in his lectures and notes that you haven't used yet to attempt to teach things. Like how do I look into the future?
absolutely awful. gives the vibe that he thinks the world of himself. stuck u and just plain mean when you ask for help. also, he literally only responds to emails like once a week.
The worst teacher I have ever had in college and I had the worst experience in this class. He is so mean and thinks he is the king of the world! The tests and the grading for this class are getting harder and harder every year while his lecture notes are inconsistent. What is the point of making an introductory class so hard and confusing?
Ridiculous. All he does is read off an html page during lecture. When students try asking questions, he cuts them off and says to see him after class. I literally had a 96 going into the final and im pretty sure i may end up with a very low B after the final. He makes the tests so hard for no reason when this should be an intro to stats class.
Can I give negative score here?
Bi's lectures are mediocre at best, and I felt as if I could have learned the same amount by reading the html file myself. He takes a long time to respond to emails, checks the discord server sporadically, and provides half-baked answer keys for the practice exams. He's not the worst teacher I've had but he didn't facilitate learning much either.
thank you bi
Bi is very mediocre. He doesn't really prepare for lectures and just through the provided HTML file for the course content. He is okay at answering questions. It was nice that all his lectures were recorded.
His grade threshold is higher than other sections, having exact same hws and exams. He thinks it's because he's good at teaching. But he simply don't know he's so bad at teaching so that some students go ask other sections about exam questions prior to taking it. His exam is one day later but we all have the exact same exam questions.
I think one of the biggest flaws of this course is that the grade thresholds are dependent on how other people do in the class. As other people have mentioned, different sections have had different thresholds for an A, AB, etc, but the work is the exact same. For my section, an A was a 90.53%, but I think other sections had lower/higher ones.
Not great at explaining concepts as he only reads off of notes, which can be surface level compared to exams and isn't engaging to learn from. Nice in lecture, but for some reason becomes rude and pretentious when administering exams. Exams are difficult but curved, although doable to do well in class if you attend lecture and pay attention.
One of the top 2 worst professors I've had at UW-Madison. Not only are his lectures just reading off of an HTML file in class, he is condescending when meeting with him one on one in his office hours when you are confused about a question or concept.
I think other reviews are a little too harsh. While he doesn't necessarily teach (just reads off the document) and he does seem pretentious when he isn't teaching the whole class, the course wasn't too hard. He does cover topics pretty well in lectures, though some things are glazed over, so be ready to go through everything before the exam.
just look at the score
stat240 and stat340 just are terrible and bi just reads off the html file. The homework does not help you prepare for the exams. He is hard to reach outside of class and takes awhile to respond to emails. The night before my final I had my homework from october finally graded
super mean and doesn't care about students
there is no any logic in bi's class
Bi gives very confusing responses about course materials. The course design is such a mess(I don't know if this is entirely his fault tho). Doesn't care much about students. And again, everything was quite confusing and would give a 0/5 if that's an option.
Dislike group projects. TAs gave varying scores. My friends received nearly 100%, but I got only 70%, significantly impacting my final grade. The final exam was difficult, with an average score of 75.
Surprised to see such a low rating for Bi. I took STAT240 & 340 with him, and his teaching style fits me well. He goes through the codes detailedly and provides recordings and notes contains all the concepts and codes each class (great review material). His exam questions are usually unpredictable, but not that hard. Workload: 340 << 240
PLEASE don't take ur class w/ Bi. He is super unaccommodating & has horrible lectures compared to the other two profs. Please take STAT 240 w/ Bret Larget or one of the grad students who teach it instead of Bi. I used to love stats from HS, but Bi is srsly making me feel like I hate it. Wish so bad I'd listened to the advice on here about him. :(
Don't know why his rating is so low. He speaks clearly and his explanation is easy to understand. Goes through the math details as well which is important. And he records everything. For an entry level class I think he teaches pretty well.
Listen to the other reviews! If you are planning on taking STAT 240, do not take it with Bi. He is not a good lecturer and does not explain things well. I found many of the concepts hard to understand because of his poor teaching style. The layout of the class sucks, and he just reads off an HTML class while barely explaining things.
This class is a disaster. Homeworks are insanely hard R problems, but they don't teach you R in class. The exams are random questions you have never ever had practice with. The homework does have interesting problems but you literally just have no clue how to solve it - such a shame. I have learned nothing from this class. At all.
Lectures were meh, like other reviews said he just reads off an html file. The exams are terribly written, no consistency with the past exams they give you to practice and almost seems like they are trying to trick you instead of being straightforward about if you know a concept.
Lectures are hard to engage with, literally just reads directly off a poorly formatted HTML file. Extremely hard exams that have unnecessarily specific questions that he maybe mentioned once the whole semester. Homework is easy and not super time consuming. Overall bad professor and bad organization, also he belches at least five times a lecture.
I honestly don't see where a lot of the hate comes from, Bi seems like a decently nice guy. He would always stop in lecture to see if anyone had any questions which was nice; exams are fair as long as you put in effort throughout the semester and do the practice exams. He is a bit condescending at times but not insanely so.
I was afraid to ask questions during class much of the time bc he acts like you are stupid if he doesn't like your question. :( So you can get him to like u more if u ask smart questions, but it isn't very helpful for learning. Lectures don't prep students much for the exams. Wish Cameron Jones were teaching again next semester bc he is much better
I knew some pretty smart students who only got an AB instead of the A they were aiming for. The exams are unpredictable. I even thought it was hard as someone w/ a stats background from HS. The course is just tragically disorganized. Very difficult to learn all the content thoroughly thru the resources they give u (aka extremely long HTML files).
The most condescending teacher I have ever engaged with. He makes jokes at your expense if you ask questions and tries to make you feel bad. Not a very nice person. Not a very good teacher. Reads off of an html file. Is not an approachable person and if you ask for help he will be sure to not help on purpose.
Other reviewers are right. This guy makes me sad. Wish there was an "Unaccessible Outside Class" and a "Not Caring" option because that is what Bi Cheng Wu is. He pretends that he's "very happy to help!" but in reality, he isn't at all. I ask myself all the time why he can't just be a bit nicer.
I only watched this guys lectures online so never actually interacted with him, so I can't comment on his personality like many others on this thread are doing, but as a lecturer he was fine. Like I said, they were recorded which was very nice, and there were many resources online provided for help.
very nice guy. Taught me a lot. Very "Patient" during office hours
His notes were very comprehensive. He was very useful right after class to fix any code issues.
His recordings were great, genuinely seemed like a nice guy who interacted with students well during the class. Didn't really go to his office hours much so don't have too much to say of how accessible he is outside of class. Overall a great professor.
Both 240 and 340 alike expect you to have a strong grasp on statistical concepts. Bi does nothing more than the bare minimum of reading the notes with scant extra examples. The course structure is very poor, and I would recommend taking a STAT theory class concurrently. My other stats class was better at teaching me the material for this class.
In summary. Homework doesnt prepare you well for exams. Lectures is just him going through notes, self study is more effective. Poor response time on the Discord Help Server. As said by others, take a different base stats class with this one. Discussions are a waste of time except for finding study partners. Nice guy, shouldn't be a teacher.
Had Bi for 240 and 340 and I don't know if it's him or if the class is just poorly organized but the exams in 340 had virtually no alignment with the assignments. When I was in 240, he had tried to cap a B at a 91, so he didn't make the best impression with that. He's not the worst, just seems to lack some empathy towards his students at times.
Does discriminate between student
gpa killer
This professor made the hardest exam i've taken at uw madison.
Man this class was tough, exams were really hard especially the first midterm which the average was a 50% Im assuming we getting a curve though. These carti lyrics sum up how i feel: "They think I'm Osama, woah, she think I'm off somethin' I'm f*****' with a bad lil' vibe, molly all over her tongue". I feel like this after every lecture tbh
Rating were really bad, but I really liked him he obviously cares about his students and wants them to do well.
Not a great professor, felt like I had to just reteach everything we covered in lectures to myself.
Bi is straight up just not a good professor. Very short tempered man as well he raged out during the midterm because he didnt have enough seats in the class to sit alternating order. Def do not reccomend him, save yourself the headache and agony
Ugh. If you are able to take another prof for this course, DO IT! Did not have a single good interaction with Bi and he is overall not a great prof or lecturer. Do not recommend
Exams are ridiculous and not representative of anything we learn in class or do for homework. They're extremely theory based and in depth, to an unreasonable extent. Lectures are just him reading off of the notes.
Taking Stat 240 with Professor Bi has to be one of the most confusing course experiences I have ever had at UW. I genuinely think he is a nice person, but I certainly did not enjoy listening to him read off of an HTML file as long as Lake Mendota, three times a week. The final exam kicked my *ss.
Nice guy, awful professor. He's smart but all he does is read off an HTML file, even then concepts are explained poorly. Exams are written awfully. For reference, mean on the midterm was a 50%. Exams are theory based and are absolutely nothing like the homework or discussion assignments. The 240/340 sequence needs to be reevaluated and audited.
Bi's words were too many people passed the midterm last semester so he made ours impossible and complained that not many people passed and will make the final easier. When the final came he made it hard as **** and killed my gpa along with it. If I pass this class I will thank god that I will have to never see this man I hope no one lets him teach.
Material was simplified to a point where you understood it in lecture, but wasn't sure how to apply concepts to homework problems. Failed to discipline TA who didn't do their job the entire semester. Gives false hope in office hours.
Idk if it's him or the department, but this class is run so poorly and confusingly. Little overlap between lectures/hw and exams. As a lecturer he's decent, though this class is way harder than it has to be. He seems like a nice guy, but the list of things to be improved about this class is long.
He wasn't understanding and came off as condescending if I didn't know something. He also made me afraid to email him if I didn't understand something.
Talks too fast and cannot catch up with
Most of the content in the class needs to be self learned through the psets and office hours, but Bi Cheng did a good job of covering the basics during lecture.
Lectures hard to understand and exam is difficult than what he taught.
TESTS ARE NOT LIKE THE PRACTICE
bruh our midterm was way harder than expected so much so that he had to scale it our average was 60 as a class then he scaled it to be 70 even then not a single person got 100. beware he doesnt have past exam material so you cant even see the type of questions or the format of the exam. he also wont tell you whats on the exam he will be hella broad
Would not take again
He always went in circles during lectures often making it hard to follow. Exams are nothing at all like thr practice. Overall, terrible teacher and course as a whole
expects students to figure things out for themselves and is not very considerate of their needs; exams are nothing like past exams, so studying for them is more difficult than it needs to be
Tests are nothing like practice exams, format is random and unpredictable, makes material less of focus and format the most challenging part.
Bi is a great instructor with a great handle on the material. His lectures were interesting and informative, and his own online textbook was much appreciated. Despite excelling in teaching, he lacks in testing. The exams test the most trivial parts of the course, with weird emphasizes on syntax, instead of true understanding.
Lectures are him reading off of his own HTML coded notes. Exams are heavily weighted and study guides are not accurate to the exams themselves. The grading is very harsh, and when asked for reasoning behind grades, I still didn't understand why I lost points.
He just reads off notes in his lecture, we have to teach the the course to ourselves, his exams are so hard, the practice exams are not in the same format as the actual exam, please do not take him.
The average grade was a fail for both midterm and final exam. Questions are very different from the practice questions and review and no matter how much you put on your cheat sheet it will not help.
Lectures are not helpful at all and are just him reading off the material. EXTREMELY test heavy and very harshly graded. Exams are not similar to practice and formatting is unpredictable and confusing. Wish I never took this class because of how much of a negative impact is is having on my gpa.
Tests do not align with the practice tests at all. Class averages for the midterm and the final were both failing grades. Would not take.
Please do not take this class with Bi. He's really smart, I wish I could say he's a nice guy but I'm not a liar. His tests are so hard, and the practice exams are nothing like the tests. If you have questions, go to the TA's as he will get mad at you for asking. He is extremely rude and it never seems like he wants to be there.
The other classes average was 28/30 for the midterm, our average was 62% on the midterm. The practice tests are also much easier and very different compared to the tests.
This is by far the most difficult and frustrating class I have taken. The professor teaches at an extremely fast pace. Exams are unrealistically difficult. Success in this course feels more about guessing what the professor wants than actually learning the material. Would not recommend to take this class with him
I honestly thought he was a pretty good professor. I was able to understand all the concepts by going to lecture. He was very helpful when answering questions. However, the tests were very weird compared to class material and they were graded pretty harshly. I think that's a lot of people's problem with him. Very nice guy though.
Just the worst prof. Just reads out lectures from slides and is very bad at communicating with anyone.
The 1 star is just the minimum rating the system allows. it's not what I actually think or feel about the professor.💀💀
If you are new to coding, it is very hard to score well, and his section's exams were much harder than others. I liked the handwritten R questions as they're practical, but putting them in a timed exam was not appropriate and stressful. Lectures covered basics but mostly repeated the html note and were not engaging at all.
The review materials provided were never the same as what was on the exams. When people would ask questions during lectures, he would either not be able to answer it or change his answer every time someone countered his response. I scored almost 100% on every homework assignment, yet the exams were completely different.
BI doesn't care about teaching. Boring lectures where he reads off slides. Homework problems are nothing like exams. Practice exams were far easier than actual exams, which had averages in the 50s and no curve. Multiple choice was written with trick questions and he told us he couldn't tell if it was hard because he is so good at stats.
Doesn't give helpful lectures, any study materials he gives has no correlation to the exam. He uses his percentile system to justify giving no curves on the exam and making them extremely difficult. The final average was a 47.8. If you have no prior programming experience don't expect to get an A
Absolutely pitiful professor. Doesn't even have a PhD. Exam averages are in the 40-50 range. Any practice exam material he gives is far easier and nothing like the exam. Extremely condescending to any questions and generally unhelpful. Talks fast and reads directly off of slides. If you have the choice never take a class with this guy.
Class Info
Online Classes
100%
Attendance Mandatory
2%
Textbook Required
0%
Grade Predictor
Your expected effort level
Predicted Grade
B+
Grade Distribution
Common Tags
Rating Trend
Stable
-0.10 avg changeRatings by Course
STAT324
5.0
(1)Stat324
3.0
(2)Stat240
1.9
(74)Stat340
1.6
(30)Stat301
1.4
(14)Difficulty by Course
STAT371
5.0
STAT333
4.5
Stat301
4.1
Stat340
4.1
Stat324
4.0