Professor Phillips is a really sweet lady who does her best to help her students out where she can. I personally found this class horrible though simply because I despise coding. The coding assignments would take me hours on end to do and I would be very frustrated overall. However, this was my first (and hopefully last) coding class ever, so if you are familiar with R or any coding program in general then I am sure you will be fine. I really do not see what this course has to do with public affairs, but if you need to take it then I would say take it with Phillips.

Dr. Phillips is also the chair of the Public Affairs major for people who did not know. This class was very fun if you're someone who likes statistics. If you're less inclined to learn statistics, you should really invest time into studying for this class. The only large amount of work for this class are the labs. The labs often took around 5-10 hours to complete thoroughly and even then you will most likely not get 100% (certainly an A though). I REALLY REALLY recommend attending office hours EVERY WEEK. Dr. Phillips is phenomenal in office hours and takes her time to explain things to the dot in office hours. Labs are cut in half so the first half is mandatory and the second half is optional to stay back and work on lab (highly recommend so you can get help from the TAs). The lectures, readings, and podcasts are all really fun and engaging. This is probably the only class where I did all the readings. The midterm and finals are tricky. Pay attention carefully. Overall this class really isn't that tough (I mean the grade distributions show that 50% of the class got A+,A, A- so that's a great indication). But I can see how you could fail or do really bad if you don't put in the work to your labs and readings. With that being said, adjustments will probably be made for the class since it was the first time this class was taught so be open to changes.

One of the most practical and interesting classes I've taken thus far at UCLA. If you are interested in data analysis as it applies to the social sciences, or are looking to take other classes that use R, this is a great introductory class. TA spends a lot of time in the beginning helping you get accustomed to the software, and for this class I'd say having a good TA makes all the difference. You also learn some basic statistics applied to public policy issues which was interesting. Prof Meredith is incredibly helpful, passionate about the subject matter, and encouraging. Would highly recommend this class with her.

Dr. Phillips is amazing!!! She is kind, engaging, and helpful. She is always willing to take the time to explain difficult concepts, both in class and in her office hours. Though there were a lot of assignments, they were always doable in the time given, and she was very clear about her expectations on all of them. I would say the only thing I would change about this course would be the amount of readings (and listenings- some of them were podcasts) that we had to do. Those could be a bit much sometimes, and I won't lie, I didn't do all of them, but I showed up to class and paid attention and was totally fine. All in all, this was a great course with a great instructor!