2.4
Quality4.0
Difficulty33%
Would Retake126
Reviews33%
Would Retake
126
Reviews
Rating DistributionOfficial
126 total ratings5
31
4
9
3
4
2
14
1
68
What Students Say
“Test was catastrophic”
STA130 - 5.0 rating“The professor is passionate and dedicated, but that's all”
STA130 - 1.0 ratingClass Info
Online Classes
100%
Attendance Mandatory
21%
Grade Predictor
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Predicted Grade
B+
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+0.02 avg changeRatings by Course
STA365
3.5
(6)STA410
3.0
(1)STA130
2.3
(118)Difficulty by Course
STA365
4.8
STA130
4.0
STA410
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Reviews (125)
provided far too much work, literally said that we should spend 15+ hours on this course per week. This is an introductory course with a lot of people having knowledge in either stats OR programming - or none. Very few people had backgrounds in both and it was just expected for you to know R and the fundamentals of programming.
Maybe some would think it is hard, I had thought like that too, but have you ever came to the professor to ask questions? He was very patient, and he can explain difficult concepts clearly to you. After that, I can understand all the things on the next class. And his pronunciation is good, I can understand all he said as an international student.
The lectures are hard, but that has nothing to do with professor Scott. You'll feel that he explains things in a really simple way if you really listen carefully. He designed the TUT to be in groups and let us communicate with others and write short passages related with statistics .I think it's great for students who want to major in Statistics.
Awful professor and lecture content. Although he is humorous on his lecture, actually we cannot get any useful knowledge from his lecture literally. In his class, he teaches some statistics points, but he let us do the R-code in our homework, which we cannot figure out by ourselves. I have to choose him because there aren't any substitutes.
Beginner not friendly course and teacher.
Can hardly take even 25% of enough useful knowledge during his the lecture. Coding is very important for this class but he doesn't talk much about it (he also doesn't talk much about statistics), and it seems that he assumes we already have coding experience although we don't have! My classmates and I spend $60000 a year here just to do self-study?
Prof. Schwartz is very passionate about Statistics but is definitely lacking in the teaching aspect. He makes simple concepts overly complicated, lectures are poorly paced and he tends to go on tangents pertaining to abstract/irrelevant ideas. I'm doing very well in the course but that required 3 hours/day self-learning the concepts in lectures.
Thank you STA130, because of you I have had the chance to experience almost the hardest STA130 midterm ever.
Wow. Just wow. The midterm was ridiculously difficult and questions were banned by the Prof to maintain "fairness". The midterm had way too many errors, with some test questions that made 0 sense as if the entire question was a typo. We were given a page to write our "concerns" and whenever I looked around, I saw people flip there every 10 seconds.
The midterm for STA130 was today and oh boy was it bad. Firstly, one section had the exam at 2 PM while the other had it at 9 AM which should've been both 2 PM or both 9 AM for consistency. The test itself was the worst part though and was 100% unnecessarily difficult. Even some TAs couldn't help but say this year was a little "different".
Midterm = terrible: The practice test and the midterm were two completely different things and the midterm itself was filled with inconsistency and errors that would leave even people who took stats before questioning their existence. Prof is also terrible at explaining the course content and his slideshows are only code with absolutely no def.
Professor Schwartz while very passionate about stats is absolutely lacking as a professor. His lesson slideshow main concepts are usually ONLY filled with code and on the rare occasion there is a definition, it is very hard to understand. This would've been fine if he would explain during the lectures but his explanation aren't understandable too.
* Professor Schwartz while very passionate about stats is absolutely lacking as a professor. His lesson slideshow main concepts are usually ONLY filled with code and on the rare occasion there is a definition, it is very hard to understand. This would've been fine if he would explain during the lectures but his explanation aren't understandable.
Aside from the recent midterm, the course itself is so poorly structured feels like we're his guinea pigs being experimented on. Compared to previous years, this year's difficulty is so high because of bad delivery and lectures. Anyone doubting my words can see the course layout and slides themselves just look up "sta130 github" on google.
The course content was difficult as he doesn't explain concepts well if at all; lecture slides were largely incomprehensible and contained little useful information, while lectures are not recorded which makes it near impossible to study for especially if there's concepts you don't understand (which would be very often).
The problem sets every week makes you nearly want to drop the course. Simple concepts that should have been very easy to understand are taught in an ambiguous and complicated way. The midterm test was harsh and meaningless, we are learning statistics but not English literature. The professor is passionate and dedicated, but that's all.
This mid term was so easy I prob got above a 90. Evryone's dissing this prof but I think they should blame themselves for how stupid they are. Work harder guys!!
The midterm grades has been released and it is completely an accident. The mean before curve is 41.7%. The highest score before curve is only 84.5% while the second highest score is 80%. I hope that the previous over-confident grader who said he or she would got 90% is one of these two people!
Kept changing grades after releasing them. Unclear grading system
man didnt touch a single code while teaching but got us to answer a test full of codes. cant really teach other than using fancy words. hes a nice guy but man stay away from his classes. like man pls teach me bootstrapping codes properly along w the hypothesis testing dude.
dude didnt teach anything useful. test was ass i looked left and right boom empty papers. codes were on the tests but never had a proper explanation of the codes. his way of teaching uses them fancy ass words so gl understanding.
petition to change the prof like to support
This prof is the shittiest prof ive ever seen in my life. He does not teach shit, mid term is shit, our lives r shit becuz of him if he goes on to be a prof after this im quitting school
The midterm marking system was a horrible mess. The mark changed 3 times, and each time became lower. The professor is terrible at making tests and although he's a great person and seems educated in stats for his own knowledge, his ability to teach is horrid and leaves students extremely clueless. IF you have him, run FAR AWAY.
The way he teaches sta130 is similar to him expecting you to already have background knowledge on the code itself and the test format was very similar to it as well. His own slideshows provide little to no explanation of the concepts we are supposed to learn and most of it is only code chunks with no explanation at all.
Lectures are like joe Biden speeches
I aspire to be able to BS like he does for his lectures.
He doesn't teach.... had to end up curving the midterms harder than me curving female homo sapiens in my DMS.
He is an excellent person, but not a good teacher. He is excited in the lecture, but teach nothing.
everything that could be said has already been said by others. stay clear. class is easy to pass since its made for even the worst prof to let you pass, but just know it will not be done comfortably. In all honesty, this class should not even be hard if taught correctly. unlucky for fall 2022, got this guy telling us hes proud of his "hard tests"
It required some self-learning that I guess a lot of people aren't used to. If you have trouble, his office hours are very accessible and he replies to Piazza questions thoroughly and quickly. Problem sets are basically free completion marks, and while the midterm was difficult with some vague questions, he curved our grades up generously.
If you choose him as your professor, you'd better be prepared to learn everything by yourself. You should buy a youtube premium and watch the statistics videos rather than wasting time on his speeches. His PowerPoint filled with codes is completely not readable. BTW, the coding part is 3 times harder than the real CSC courses and he teaches nothing
He barely explains code during lectures, but the exams and homework are all about coding. He also explains concepts in a very confusing way, at least to me. Exams are hard as hell. Weekly homework usually takes four to six hours to complete. 3 presentations in total. Do not take this course unless aiming for statistics major. Good luck guys.
Prof is very nice and enthusiastic. However, his methods of teaching are terrible n his midterm was brutal and ambiguous considering we barely learn anything in his lectures slideshows teach us nothing and the problem sets are terrible. That being said, it was nice of him to curve our grade up I just hope the exam doesn't end up being this bad.
He is very vague when explaining topics for the first time, frequently diverting to long irrelevant tangents and skimming over massive amounts of code chunks with little explanation. He then expects you to magically know how every line of code works exactly despite never explaining anything.
the pre-midterm review class went over lots of easy stuff and he said those were enough to cover the exam, but the real midterm was hard af, and the avg before curving up might probability only 40 sth....
Awful Lectures
you will never experience this type of professor in your life especially at the best school in Canada
10/10, tests are hard tho
This class is unbelievable. Everyone should go to register for this class. You can really taste the shit in this class, which you didn't experience before.
No doubt that he is an excellent person, very nice and enthusiasm. However, his lecture is useless, he seems to assume that we all have background knowledge for R coding and statistic, which brings horrible experience cuz his slides are full of unreadable codes and he never explains. Also he didn't provide enough learning material.
Good professor, lectures were interesting although the always ran out of time near the end. Very good public speaker.
He gives good lectures, although he always ran out of time for the last 5-10 or so slides (and this would be up to us to go over on our own). The problem sets and weekly tutorial assignments were doable, but his test questions were vague although this was compensated with the curve.
Prof Schwartz has experience in the industry & academia and it shines in his lectures. While he does not teach you R, I believe that one can pick it up with relative ease. All of his papers are made based on his slides, so as long as you can understand his slides, you're good to go. His office hours are incredibly helpful too!
The course is focused on learning R, for which many great resources are provided. Lectures available from the beginning in R format to practice. Takes a 10 minute break each lecture so I always got answers to any doubts. Problem sets were doabe if you did them early. Cares sooo much about his field! Midterm and final requires critical thinking.
Cool dude... But the class is awful and the exams are...
He's very passionate about what he's teaching. However, his lectures felt like he assumes that students know the basics of R and statistics, so a lot of studying outside the lectures were required. Problem sets were graded by completion, tests were curved up crazily. Got a good grade in the end but it was a tough course to understand fully.
So many people were talking about how bad this professor is, but I'm going to show you how to succeed in his class: RUN!!!!
Run. Literally awful. He is passionate about the subject but assumes everyone knows basic r coding and statistics. Jumps right in with no warning. His exams are literally reading his mind, only good part is that they're curved. Goes on so many tangents and nothing makes sense. I fell asleep every class and probably didn't miss any actual content.
His lecture is not so connected with our homework and exam. If you haven't studied R studio before, my suggestion is RUN!!! DON'T SELECT HIM as your STA130 professor!!! All of my other courses are above A, only STA130 is A- (81)
Scott as a person is amazing. But as a prof for an introductory stats course? Not so much. He is very passionate and super friendly but his tests are so hard its not even funny. Midterm avg before curve was 40... However he does curve generously and it is definitely possible to do well in his class. You have to put in the work tho.
Super likeable and great lecturer, often ran out of time and slides can sometimes be confusing. Problem sets, tutorials and final project marked pretty leniently. Midterm was dogshit but final was decent, making a good cheat sheet was super important.
Inspirational
He's sooooo nice, literally the nicest professor I met in my first year. He's so caring and so patient to explain code for us outside the lecture. Although the materials and tests are really hard, if you spend time discussing with prof scott and your TA, you would get a fair grade.
best professor ever.
He wasted too much time during lectures
wastes way too much time during lecture, it's impossible to stay focused. jumps in to things assuming knowledge and just fails to explain a lot of the things he dives into
He does NOT know how to teach sta130 in the slightest. Last year, people complained that he did not code enough and spent to much time on theory, but now ALL HE DOES IS CODE. He doesn't explain the theory AT ALL and relies on the TAs to do it. He cant find the middle ground, but its his job to do so....
Not good
Some of his test questions are VERY unclear. They were supposed to be simple, but many students cannot understand what these questions are saying. Several hundred students got 0s for questions like these.
A very interesting person, seems like a cool guys but he's not a good prof for STA130. Chucks you straight into the deep end whilst wasting a lot of time in the beginning of the lecture and showing irrelevant stuff like videos of him doing pull ups and push ups and stuff. Dropped the course before the midterm.
Don't take
awful
Lectures were VERY difficult to follow along with; he jumped right into coding and assumed that everyone else could keep up. Wasted time during lectures too. Midterm was fair, final was terrible; however he did curve very generously for the midterm. Go to his office hours he holds before the midterm and final, as he does give away lots of hints.
Tests and homework were really hard, lectures didn't cover all the contents in tests and homework. Very bad experience.
Scott is amazing but might seem tough if you're not connected with his lectures or style. I am not gonna say he is easygoing, but it's worth the effort. I mean what sets him apart is his style in preparing students for what's next. Honestly, I'm a bit surprised to see many bad reviews about him here because he was one of my best profs so far.
He's engaging in lectures, though moves fast as he codes and his humor is bizarre. It's necessary to attend; what he says is on the tests. The homework and tutorials are great practice. The office hours are helpful and there's lots of resources available. The tests cover whats said in class and challenge questions beyond that, so know your stuff.
I liked Dr. Schwartz! Definitely, do not miss class because you need to understand what he says. Also, it's just a waste not to go because he's a great lecturer. If you come to class, do the assignments, and put enough time into researching and practicing, you'll get a good grade. No surprises.
His lecture is overall wonderful to me. Lectures were hilarious and its logic was reasonable and clear. Lot's of Office Hours. Although exams require you a high expertise in all the materials you learned including all lectures, homework, tutorial homework, and tutorials you took. Be aware of the workload, it's a course you need to put efforts in.
Never take his class
engaging with the material and helpful during his office hours
Test was catastrophic
- Do not take unless you're fluent in English - Suck up to your TA, they mark everything except the midterm and exam - Prof is really funny, easy to talk to, but lectures are a waste of time. Better off watching recordings on 2x speed - Midterm was curved like crazy. Final was curved a lot. - Homework test cases were often broken
The prof is nice but his lectures are waste of time and the handouts are very hard to understand. Very confused all the time and learned most of contents from other online resources. The midterm average is about 35/100, one of the worst stats courses ever taken.
- If you score higher than the average, you will be fine because the curve was HUGE. - Lectures went REALLY FAST with difficult content, so be prepared for challenges - This course relied heavily on Python, with theoretical and coding questions on exam (writing codes). - The prof is nice, friendly, really supportive and cares about his students.
Fall 2023 - Not very good at teaching this course. Doesn't explain anything. There is weekly homework and tutorial quizzes for participation mark. He did allow one cheat sheet for the midterm and final exam.
A very generous curve was given for both the midterm and the final.
just switch to another prof if you wanna get a higher grade
Just switch to another professor.
Impossible to understand his lecture, his pace is fast as hell. Messy information. Buy ChatGPT before class. He highly relies on chatbots, and you're gonna learn EVERYTHING from chatbots. Coding-heavy class, learn more coding in faster speed than CSC108 or even CSC110... Actually, to take this class, you should be better at coding than at stats
do not take this course
take this course, trust me
hopefully will survive for the final exam, an interesting teacher with horrible skills of teaching
do not take this course otherwise u will cry
He's such a kind and a lovable professor. Though personally I regret taking this course because I much prefer theory heavy statistics, with little coding and simulating. It's just a required course for stats major which I want to take.
nice prof. You really learn in this course! It prepares you well for future sta courses! And btw it's not a good practice to leave a 1 star review just because you can't read course materials or don't put in time to master the knowledge after class. Many students including me did just fine. Just put effort into it
Do not take this professor's course.
Learning from gpt and gpt only. Lack of practice materials.
Do not take this course, or you will cry. Be sure to buy gpt plus! Learn everything from gpt, the prof doesn't explain anything, you have to learn coding yourself.
Do not take the course! You have to learn everything from gpt, the prof explained nothing. Be sure to buy a gpt plus, because even the exam is generated by gpt, that's soo crazy. There's no textbook, only few things on his github...
…nodj disks demand y cu cu cy dy dy dy
the best waterloo teacher ever
the best ryerson prof
v=best perof
yes very nice teacher
the best prof ever in mcgill
tough course but it was a good convo starter w my crush who took this course. thanks Scott u a real one.
oponknknkn
grading criteria is messed, graded by too many staff. there are literary over 15 work to be graded and even though the instruction is not clear at all.
0/10 do not recommend. however, i will say that he does curve the hell out of exams
prof thinks students using chatgpt replaces actual teaching :/
Most of the homework is too long (easy, but very tedious) and the material moves quickly, but the concepts were very useful and applicable to real life. The lectures are enjoyable (sometimes) because the prof. is like your homie and plays music etc., however once the midterm/final roll around it's all of a sudden difficult.
u either love him or hate him rants on piazza a lot
Prof Scott is an interesting character, makes lectures fun. Grading depends heavily on your TA, mine was fairly average. Learning Python is challenging but useful for skill building. What I most liked though was the use of chatbots which added a unique twist, and I appreciated how open the prof was about. I haven't seen yet this in other classes.
be prepared to learn everything by yourself
His homeworks and lecture notes are wordy.
His piazza replies rarely answer your question, tests make me reconsider if I'm a native English speaker, assumes previous statistics knowledge like R^2, course textbook is a better learning material than lecture, capstone group project is a pain in the ass since many students are freeloaders. Only a good prof if you know ML and participate often.
The course structure and tools used are innovative and interesting, but the quantity of homework assignments and the presence of group projects in a first year course with a massive enrolment really drags the experience down.
funny guy - very entertaining lectures and taught the content quite well. a lot of his test questions are worded poorly but there's usually a generous curve. lots of free marks for attendance!
Pretty cool prof. Topics are usually explained well. He is very helpful in office hours and on piazza. Course content itself is quite interesting but takes time to digest. Be careful for non-programmers, even with the new integration of LLMs into the course, he will ask coding questions on the exams.
I really liked how the course was adapted this year to be more centred around chatbots. He curves his tests very generously. The content on the tests was taken from the wiki textbook that he wrote which was very useful.
Too overhated. His tests are hard but he curves grades up.
Does not explain topics very clearly during lectures, and words test questions and instructions for assignments in a way that is not easy to understand. However, he is very approachable and accessible, so you can get help easily. Also, he's funny and tries to make lectures interesting.
overhated lol, very engaging prof who seems to care, tough exams but usually curved, useful material. the start of the course started way too fast but things got better. EXPECTS YOU TO KNOW CODE?. csc108 should literally a prereq/corequisite
The whole course was taught by gpt Feedbacks come really slow Lack of test preparation materials Extremely long test questions
I don't get too many negative feedbacks about him in this site. The class is interesting and it isn't too hard to get an A. Just do what he asks for and go to his office hour if you are confused about things. The use of Chatgpt in this class was also kind of cute and I personally find it helpful.
Scott is a really fun lecturer, and although the class doesn't make total sense at first, just remember that it's designed so that chatbots do the majority of the work for you. The only tough thing is that on some tests you have to understand code that you've never been asked about previously. Also the homework are tedious. Fun, easy class though.
Unable to sit through a lecture without wanting to rip my hair out. One of the most disorganized and flustered lecturers and makes very little effort to facilitate deeper understanding of course material. In fact, he advises students to learn from chatgpt. This is not inherently problematic, but you realize this is the only option anyways lol.
run away from this guy. just take sta130 in the winter. you will thank me later
Strange course design but at least it was a free mark and he was nice. Didn't learn much though
Do not take this course with this prof. Homework can take so much time to finish if you don't know Python. Lectures are hard to follow and can be confusing and irritating for coding beginners(or intermediates). Math is simple, but Python part feels like 2nd+3rd year stuff munched together. He's a humourous guy though, tries to entertain lectures.
DO NOT TAKE HIS LECTURE
Very hard course. Coming in with no prior knowledge of code, it was not easy. Working with chatbots made it more complicated at times. Lectures were alright, but you NEED to attend. Tutorials were a bit of a mess. Nice professor and clearly cares, just a disappointing course.
Terrible prof. He is passive-aggressive on piazza and yaps a lot. I learned ZERO things during lecture, I just came for the extra credit. Everything is working with chatbot. I earned my grade by working my a*s off, attending A BUNCH of office hours with the TA and asked chatbot to code for me. Technically learnt NOTHING from him.
Amazing prof, really cares about his students. He really tries to make the midterm and final easy enough so that if we understand the things he emphasized in class we can succeed. Makes it really obvious what you need to know in order to do well. Lots of free marks so if you do bad on the tests it won't affect your mark too much.
Class Info
Online Classes
100%
Attendance Mandatory
21%
Grade Predictor
Your expected effort level
Predicted Grade
B+
Grade Distribution
Common Tags
Rating Trend
Stable
+0.02 avg changeRatings by Course
STA365
3.5
(6)STA410
3.0
(1)STA130
2.3
(118)Difficulty by Course
STA365
4.8
STA130
4.0
STA410
1.0