2.7
Quality2.9
Difficulty39%
Would Retake116
Reviews39%
Would Retake
116
Reviews
Rating DistributionOfficial
5
29
4
17
3
9
2
13
1
48
What Students Say
“Very disconnected from Canadian teaching style”
STAT251 - 1.0 rating“He seems flustered, lost and angry half of the time”
STAT306 - 1.0 ratingClass Info
Online Classes
100%
Attendance Mandatory
74%
Textbook Required
0%
Grade Predictor
Your expected effort level
Predicted Grade
A-
Grade Distribution
Common Tags
Rating Trend
Improving
+0.74 avg changeRatings by Course
STAT200
4.8
(4)STAT241
3.7
(3)STAT251
3.2
(61)STAT201
2.4
(13)DSCI100
1.9
(8)Difficulty by Course
STAT306
3.3
STAT300
3.3
STAT200
3.3
STAT301
3.3
STATS251
3.0
Reviews (116)
Has an absolutely ridiculous marking rubric. When confronted about possible errors, he always insists that he is right up until the very end. ERRORS CARRY THROUGH ON HIS EXAMS.
Cool guy, cool class. His accent is pretty nice and his notes are pretty helpful. The class itself feels more structured in the first few units and the rest are mostly selected topics inserted into the course. It's not hard, and you get a cheat sheet for midterms/exams.
It was a pleasure being in this class. I had a lot of trouble with this class throughout the entirety of the term, and he was more than willing to answer every single question that I had. I would definitely recommend this professor.
This person is not the best lecturer, but his notes, office hours and his assignments are all fair game. HIs voice is kinda monotone and abit hard to understand, try not to sleep in class
good prof. sometime accent is hard to understand. occasionally goes through slides too fast, but most of the time he explains everything and his notes are really good. they're all you really need for exams
Has no regard for mental health challenges and extenuating circumstances. He will not consider factors even when you have produced relevant documentation. I've had such a frustrating and stressful experience with this professor. Very disconnected from Canadian teaching style.
Professor Lasantha is absolutely amazing! His lectures are fun and clear, and he always repeats important concepts many times during class and gives a quick review the next class, so it's hard to forget. His office hours are right after class MWF, he's super helpful and happy to answer questions. He prepares his students well for the final!
Wonderful Lecturers and always makes time after class to address student concerns and questions! Lecture notes are clear but be sure to go to lecture as some of the examples are only shown in class. Final is difficult but lots practice given to prepare! (Prep cheatsheet for important key points in each chapter early!)
Lasantha cares about student success (he literally mentions every lecture to register your clicker so you get your clicker marks) and most of his evaluations are fair, but the final exam was very difficult (and nothing like the practice finals he gave us). He also sometimes gets confused during lectures which is not very good.
Would not recommend
Easy exams, hard marker. Boring course.
Very poor lecturer, says um and like minimum 3 times per sentence. Totally unhelpful when you ask a question. Unpleasant to deal with. He's a total mess. Avoid like covid19!
He seems flustered, lost and angry half of the time. H can't lecture his way out of a paper bag . Exams was 2015/16 exam repackaged. Why is he teaching at a school like ubc?
Hes an amazing prof, but his accent can be hard to understand
Great professor, but he can work on his delivery in the classroom.
Lasantha is the worst professor I've ever had. Complete disregard for student questions, lack of clarity in nearly every aspect of the course, and most importantly, terrible at communicating all the key concepts we are paying to learn! Avoid having this "professor" at all costs, it's ridiculous.
Not bad but he gives out too much homework given the circumstances and doesn't take student feedback to heart, or so it seems.
Writes an exam with the expectation that you know exactly how to do everything as soon as you read the question. No time to think about the solution at all! You have to immediately write a well thought out answer with clear notation and structure so that the grader can mark it. Not to mention that he can't even teach. Don't take his class....
Notes are very crystal clear. Midterm was a big time crunch, but the difficulty of the exam made up for it. A lot of deliverables for this course but Labs and WebWork are basically free marks. TA office hours are very helpful and would recommend anyone who struggling, or is a little confused.
He was a perfect fine professor. Kinda boring but got his ideas across well. Would recommend him, but don't expect anything special from his lectures (aka not very engaging), just go, pay attention, and you'll pass.
Bad course and worse teacher. Content doesn't seem hard but the way it's taught and tested makes it hard.
If there is another prof, I guarantee he's better. Mandatory attendance and marked clickers at 8am during a pandemic. Majority of the class asks him to slow down or give more time for the marked clickers, and he does not care and says its plenty when everyone struggles. Weekly lab, quiz, and webwork. Super rushed and unclear lectures
Avoid his class if possible. Has clickers for attendance, but lectures are a waste of time. He speeds through the slides that he reads off of like a script. He also dismisses student feedback for pacing/speed and denies that he's going too fast. He ignores most questions as well so there's no point attending class aside from clicker marks.
You would have to be able to read, write, listen, calculate, and understand all at the same time because he's going so fast without stopping to take questions. He has thick Indian accent and his lecture is hard to understand. So many people complain after class but he doesn't listen or care. Avoid him if possible.
He is the worst professor I've ever had. Doesn't explain concepts well, doesn't answer student's questions, doesn't listen to students when we give feedback on the course or his teaching method. I essentially taught myself the course material, because his lectures were less useless. I only attended because we got points for attending.
The worst prof ever. Must attend the class cuz he takes attendance but his lecture is meaningless. He just reads through his worst handwritten slides that nobody can read. Lots of people complained during his lecture, on discord, and piazza. He never responds. Ask him question, he simply tells you to read the textbook. AVOID HIM!!
By far the most unprofessional and uncaring professor ive ever had with no exaggeration. He clearly picks out the information he wants to hear through his course evaluations and dismisses any other comments otherwise. Additionally, when asked about virtually anything (such as exam content, homework, etc) he also dismisses it.
I loved him this term, and I genuinely don't understand why you guys have an issue with his teaching. It gives the impression that he isn't a good instructor to prospective students, which absolutely isn't true. His class notes are perfectly written, with just the right amount of detail. All you need to do is read them and an A is guaranteed
His teaching is questionable as he rushes a lot and not always clear so prepare to do a lot of self teaching. That being said, his notes are comprehensive enough and everything thats tested is usually in the notes, activities, clickers , webwork etc. nothing out of the blue. The class is pretty straightforward.
Just imagine every factor that you can identify the worst teacher in your mind this is the one. Only read PPT and for 50 min course he will spend over 35 min on group discussion.
LACK OF PRACTICE PROBLEMS TO PREP FOR MIDTERM LECTURE IS CONFUSING, NOT TO THE POINT NOT RESPONSIVE ON PIAZZA, A LOT OF QUESTIONS LEFT UNANSWERED
He does have an accent but I don't find it hard to understand what he is saying. The lecture material may be dry but he gives notes that are clear and easy to follow. I enjoyed the lecture and class. Moreover, the way the course is organized was great. Many TAs and himself were readily available for questions which was awesome.
This course's content is quite easy but attending his lectures made it hard to learn. Most of what I learned was on my own and attending lectures only confused me rather than clarify things for me. His lectures are very oddly paced. He spends most of the time on old content and then speeds through new content. He literally just reads his slides :(
Repeats lots of things and can't explain concepts well. He might be one of the worst profs I had. Do not count on the prof and be ready to study on your own. Best way to succeed in this course is to review the lecture activities over and over again. The average for our class was 78% btw.
not clarifying concepts, not paying attention to class, not responding to any questions and feedback
He is the encyclopaedic definition of bad teaching. If you are looking for a class that you can register in, learn 0 things from over the course of the term, learn all the material on your own from YouTube, and pay full tuition for this because he is the only professor for this course, THEN by all means I recommend. Get ready for rushed clicker Qs.
Prof really needs to learn how to teach. Can't teach concepts, never answers to questions posted, tough grader, no time to do well on the midterm as majority of kids failed, has ickliclers where we don't have enough time to answer correctly as he quickly ends it, has an accent so hard to understand, never writes anything to show us how it's done.
it is a disaster... low quality course materials terrible lectures.
this class makes me cry every mwf at 8:01am in the back row of cirs. the stress from this class and the ever-changing course requirements are too much. be prepared to learn how to write in tiny font because he will not give you enough space on the exam to write. students would ask genuine questions on piazza and he would reply "watch the lecture".
I honestly don't know why he has such a bad rep. Lectures were clear and easy to follow. I really enjoyed the format of the course (in-class questions to work on with a group). Everything was quite organized and went smoothly. And he listened to student feedback and incorporated it into his class. And he really cares about his students.
Despite the majority of comments on this page, Lasantha is a super caring prof! In my experience (taking STAT 251 during the summer, in person), he really wants you to succeed and makes sure that the class understands before moving on to the next topic. From talking to others, a lot of ppl like him, but not the class itself (hence the reviews).
run if you can can't anderstand what he is doing
Lots of independent study was required, I personally had to rely a lot on youtube, particularly Professor Leonard, to survive most of the chapters. The prof gets sidetracked a lot , doesn't really explain, and read off of the slides, fortunately, his slides were amazing for exams. Iclickers so lecture is mandatory, his accent isn't that bad.
A very disorganized prof, does not know how to teach, has no structure to his lectures, no point going, dependent on self study regardless.
Explains examples alright, but teaches many concepts in abstract making them difficult to learn and complete homework. Class is only offered at 8am and does graded iClickers. Difficult to understand sometimes. Labs are mostly useless, and feel like they teach more about using R than actual statistics. Accommodating professor
Simply the worst professor I've ever had. He somehow possesses the talent for making the easiest of things the hardest. In the lecture, it will seem like he has covered everything, but when you sit down to do the worksheets you realise, all he taught was just the first question.
Professor Lasantha Premarathna organized very helpful slides. They stayed after class for long hours to answer my questions and each question posed by every student. They were very respectful towards students. They were clear about testable content. Professor Premarathna is very knowledgeable about the course, and I recommend taking his course.
Very caring professor, who goes out of the way to help students with questions they have. Lectures are very information compact and iclickers can be a little bit tricky but are used to emphasize important concepts. Exams, assignments and labs are quite reasonable. Course is set up in a way that if you put effort in, you will get a good grade.
Dr. Premarathna is *very* caring of his students and a really wholesome professor! His slides and clickers are really good for studying. He provides lots of in class examples to help us understand content and help us in Webwork hw. The only nitpick I have is that I hope he had further explained the many formulas in the last unit. Great prof! :D
Good lecture slides and the lecture pace is pretty good, but sometimes the professor himself is difficult to understand, and couldn't understand ambiguities in his own iClicker questions. Midterm and exam were very reasonable. The provided textbook notes are near useless, but luckily the lectures are enough to get a good grade in this course.
This prof fails to explain anything during lectures. The entire course is pretty much self study.
His lectures are horrendous and he knows it. The only reason anybody attends is because he has mandatory iclickers that are graded for correctness (at 8AM no less!)
Great professor ! Cleared all my doubts during lectures (make sure you go to them)
I honestly don't know why he has such a bad reputation. He taught me STAT 200 well back when I took it with him, his lecture slides were also amazing.
GOAT!!!!!
He is quite unreasonable in his delivery for the class. The only section was at 8:30 AM. The prof refused to add any online support, even though he claimed multiple times throughout the semester that it would be extremely easy to do so. Lectures themselves were read straight from the slides, but the tests were based off the slides so that was ok.
He tries really hard and we can see that he wants to teach, but he ends up making very simple concepts difficult to understand. I've heard that he is helpful outside class though. I stopped going to lectures after the second half of the course. Do attend the tutorials though, the TAs can be very helpful.
He was alright, he seemed to know what he was talking about but was not a great explainer
I genuinely have to say that this prof was the worst prof of my first year. In my DSCI class, no one paid attention in his lectures. NO ONE! It was so gruelling to sit in his lectures and listen to him drone on and on... that being said, lectures were not mandatory and you could probably pass the class without attending any lectures haha
He's a bit boring but he includes plenty of helpful examples in the lectures, activity sheets, and practice material for the exams.
Lectures were at 8 AM during normal year, which didn't help. Prof's a bit hard to understand. I needed to review the notes after each class to understand, so I stopped going. Notes are ok, but incomplete, sometimes confusing, with spelling errors. Had to look at Wikipedia, YouTube, book to clarify concepts. Homework is fair. Prepare to self-study.
Nice guy but extremely boring lectures. Clearly cares, and the homework and exams were relatively fair, so not the best professor I've had by far, but not the worst.
Not a great lecturer, be ready to self learn the main course concepts. If you have any coding experience, this course is a walk in the park given its open-note. What is expected on the quizzes are incredibly clear.
Underrated. This guy is chill with the sauce
Had this professor for DSCI100 - was easily the worst professor I have had at UBC. He is a nice person, but horrible at teaching. He does not know how to teach and no one listens to his lecture. I had to self teach all the concept. He needs to change the way he speaks because it is really monotone (boring) and hard to understand.
This prof makes Statistics so much more boring than it is. He does not care about giving lectures it seems like he does them of duty. Everyone is doing other things in class and he is not at all respected. His lectures are the dryest lectures I have had, biggest mistake to take this course with him
Be ready to study the whole curriculum yourself. I had a very hard time understanding what he is talking about in lectures because of his strong accent.
What's wrong with this proffessor? He can't teach at all. He has a heavy accent, moreover, the midterm is so timely packed and HE IS A TOUGH GRADER. DON'T TAKE THIS CLASS WITH HIM!!
This was literally the worst teacher, not just professor, I have ever had in my whole life. I have no idea what he was talking about ever. His accent isn't a problem but his convoluted circular method of explaining things definitely was. Lectures were not engaging and he said maybe about 2-3 useful sentences in a whopping 1.5 hours of lecture.
worst prof I have ever seen
He is a good guy, but the worst prof I got. I had him in DSCI100, and STAT 201. The guy does not know how to teach, I dreaded his lectures, and had to try really hard to stay awake. Try your best to find a new prof, but if you do get him, You're pretty much on your own so I would recommend to go to class prepared and ask the TAs all your doubts.
Terrible lecturer, thankfully the material was not that hard to begin with but he cannot teach. Just reads off slides and does iclickers. It's not hard to pass this class if you study but its really a self learning course.
He is kind but with heavy accent, i always feel sleepy in his class.
He's a good guy and it's evident he cares about how well the class is doing, however he's not very good at explaining concepts in lectures. I highly recommend for people to take some level of stats before this class. For those taking this course as their first stats class, prepare to be confused with certain concepts and rely on self-teaching.
His lectures are kinda dry, but his slideshows are great. He posts plenty of examples + practice material. He was generous with the grading scheme after the midterm complaints. He is also flexible with deadlines. the teaching team for the course holds additional OH around assignment due dates and exams which is helpful.
Such an underrated prof. Cares a lot about students and goes out of his way for us. Provides so much practice and gives clear expectations. Lots of assignments so grade isn't only based off exams. Genuinely a great guy and can be so funny in lectures. If you put in effort you'll do great! Highly recommend and I look forward to stat 300 with him.
Lectures are pretty boring but he does his best to give students high grades by dropping lowest midterm/lowest lab/lowest webwork. Finals and midterms were very fair no curveballs. You'll get a decent grade with him but won't have much fun. Would still recommend.
Excellent professor who cares about your learning. His office hours are very helpful, and he tries to explain concepts in different ways until you eventually understand the topic. Midterms and finals are reasonable as well.
I've had the distinct displeasure of taking 3 classes with him. He has the unique and baffling ability to unlearn and confuse you about a topic you already know. He's unprepared and undetermined. Tests are boring and usually just calculations and do not test concepts. It's frankly unethical for this to teach. He has made a topic I love, hell.
Do not recommend at all. Poorly worded assignments and exams, his lectures go way too fast which are only made worse by his heavy accent, plus he just reads off his slides most of the time. Avoid him if possible.
The prof did a good job explaining the material. There were clear lecture topics and learning objectives. He allowed for cheat sheets on the exams which is nice. If you're a stats major wanting to take STAT 300 to fill out the 300+ requirements, I would strongly recommend since the class wasn't too difficult.
Sincerely the worst and most demotivating class I have ever taken. He was never prepared (just read off other prof's slides/weekly assignments), extremely heavy accent, unable to clearly answer questions I had (genuinely seemed to not understand what I was saying), plus a weird group project in which we had to do everything individually. AVOID!
He knows his material but can't teach. Accent heavy and just reads off slides which makes it worse. Good grader but in the end, you are just memorizing and not learning anything.
Great professor. He really wants all of his students to succeed. Exams were very fair and he provides lots of resources to study for it. The only problem was that the lectures were very very boring, but other than that, if you go to class, do the webworks, and study well, you will do great in this course with lasantha!
The lectures were long and boring. His accent is also very hard to understand. He also speedruns through all the material in the summer term so it is hard to keep up and I really didn't like the pace of this course. I thought the exams were hard but ended up with an ok grade. Didn't learn much from lectures, had to learn most of the material online
The worst prof I've had in the last three years. I've also taken STAT 201 & 251 with him and it's always the same. His lectures are incredibly dry, he explains concepts in such a round-about way that reading his slides is better than listening to him. You will have to teach yourself using his slides. Luckily, the course content isn't hard.
I would avoid taking any course with him 100%. His lecture is very dry and hard to follow along. Get ready to just read the slides with him during class. Basically, you need to learn it yourself with him.
idk why he gets so much hate, he's actually really nice and gives us mercy
This is the third class I have taken with Lasantha. He is a very nice person, and I can tell he wants his students to succeed. STAT 301 was disorganized, but the material is simple if you've taken other 300+ level stat classes; if you don't have exposure to STAT 306, it will be tough since some lectures felt like that content was already known.
He explains concepts in class clearly and gives fair exams! The expectations of how to do well in the course are clear, and I found the course to be overall very enjoyable for someone who took this course for a requirement.
The materials are hard to understand, the lectures are bored, with heavy accent. Won't take his course again. The final exam grade adjustment is confusing, the grade I got is totally unexpected.
8am classes were tough and the dry delivery of the material didn't help. However, Lasantha is a super nice prof who's always willing to help (go to his office hours!!). This class required more work than I expected, but there are plenty of resources to help you succeed if you put the time in. Exams are challenging but fair if you're well prepared.
He actually cooks during lectures, I don't understand anything from reading the textbook or slides but watching his lectures enlightens me. His accent is not that hard to understand. The exams were kind of difficult and I wish there was more practice material for them especially the final as there were a few weird and unexpected questions on there.
I honestly have no clue why this professor is getting so much dislikes, bc he is GOATED. He really cares about students and learning, and I really appreciated it throughout the term. His tests are reasonable and he posts recordings as well. He is such a good prof overall, and his accent never bothered me either. Thank you Lasantha!
Very very clear and fair grading criteria, makes it very easy for students to be motivated to work hard and not get too frustrated about the course. Drops the lowest lab, lowest webwork, lowest 7 clickers sessions, midterm weigh to the final. Not the best lectures but very fair person. Transparent, willing to take student feedback, no ego.
DSCI 100 course content is pretty dry but Lasantha doesn't help to make it better. He is very boring to listen to and most people during a lecture do their homework or play games I feel like when he talks about something it takes 3x the time its supposed to.
Gives a lot of opportunities to make up bad marks and keeps you motivated to keep putting in effort. Appreciated the lecture recordings. Exams were pretty fair.
Lasantha seems like a nice person but his lectures are very dry. The entire class pretty much just used his lectures as time to do the homework assignments and do the mandatory clickers. He made a course with somewhat interesting material into a total snooze fest—if you're interested in data science, take this course with another prof.
Inherently DSCI100 is a textbook-main course, so all professor lectures are kinda supplementary; wonderful prof who is undoubtedly knowledgeable and helpful. Didn't have much interactions but he cleared up a lot of confusion of textbook content. Easy course if you're into coding, but it's hard if it isn't. Lots of memorization + coding.
I don't know about other courses, but his STAT251 class was very fair and manageable. His lecture slides are great, and he encourages active learning with iClickers. There are quite a lot of things to do in this class (labs, webwork, homework) but overall it's pretty doable if you review the lecture content. The exams are fair. Course taken: 2024W2
Took in 2024W2. He's not always a great lecturer but the course material is honestly not hard. The lecture slides are very informative and non-exam related things were not worth that much and also not graded harshly. I find this pretty fair! Honestly never went to class past the first week because it was at 8am and I was fine. I've had way worse.
Took this year. This class is the same deal as STAT251 in the last rating. He's not always the greatest at lecturing but the lecture slides contain everything you need to know. Exams were not difficult, and allowed cheat sheets. I studied the night before for this final and got average. I also didn't attend this class past the first week lol
The assignments used material that was not taught in class. We literally cannot understand what he says in class, and he just reads off the slides.
Lasantha is a very caring professor. I took this class during the summer so of course it was very lecture heavy but I really liked the way he taught. He gave clear examples with each topic and the iclicker questions were extremely helpful in clearing doubts. He was also very caring and gave extra time for assignments.
Lasantha is a very caring prof. I took this course during the summer so of course it was very lecture heavy. But he gave clear examples with each topic and the iclicker questions were extremely helpful in clearing doubts. He was also super nice and gave extra time for assignments. If you attend his lectures, you will definitely end up doing well.
Taken in 2025S1. Lasantha explained concepts in lecture well and took time to make sure students understood the material. Most students agreed the midterm was fair, but the final was surprisingly difficult. Communication was also slow. The course can be dry and frustrating, but that's more because of the prescriptive nature of the content.
Lectures were not engaging and I mostly read the textbook for that week during his lectures. Many people would do that as well as write the worksheets/tutorials during lecture. Made iclickers worth marks meaning you had to stay for the lecture in person as well.
Lectures were a bit bland but I appreciated that they were all recorded. Exams were pretty fair.
The only downside is that his lectures are mandatory and early in the morning. But as a professor he's great. He is very clear with his expectations, his assessments are extremely fair, and he is generous with grading and even provides opportunities for extra marks. He also makes himself very available for questions and records lectures.
Lectures are bad, slides are bad, yet attendance is mandatory
The guy can't teach but makes up for it by being extremely fair when it comes to grading. Later during the course he said he will drop 2 labs , 6-7 iClicker sessions, and will replace midterm grade with your final exam grade if it is higher. Exams were objectively fair too.
Prof. Premarathna is amazing, truly the GOAT. he extends deadlines, drops a bunch of clickers/labs, and genuinely care about his students. His morning lecture can be tough to follow, so I just watched the recordings instead and understood everything. The midterm was fair, hoping the final will be too. I don't get the hate.
Lectures are way too basic, and says the lectures are a summary of his textbook. Textbook is useful for homework but his tests ask you to use methods covered in class and not covered in the textbook. The course seems to boil down to a guessing game of when to use his lectures and when to use the textbook which is optional.
Lasantha is a professor that I think gets too much hate. I understand that no one likes to go to mandatory 8 ams consistently but his lectures do help a lot if you focus, they contain lots of examples that help you understand the concepts well. He is also very accommodating with his grading, and he genuinely wants to see his students succeed.
Caring Prof, gave many examples in class, and marked fairly. Also gave many opportunities for extra marks and was always available after class to answer questions.
He's nice and not that bad overall. The exams of STAT300 are definitely based on the slides.
Class Info
Online Classes
100%
Attendance Mandatory
74%
Textbook Required
0%
Grade Predictor
Your expected effort level
Predicted Grade
A-
Grade Distribution
Common Tags
Rating Trend
Improving
+0.74 avg changeRatings by Course
STAT200
4.8
(4)STAT241
3.7
(3)STAT251
3.2
(61)STAT201
2.4
(13)DSCI100
1.9
(8)Difficulty by Course
STAT306
3.3
STAT300
3.3
STAT200
3.3
STAT301
3.3
STATS251
3.0