His midterm focuses on trivial details. Not an easy one, but still doable since he curved a lot and gave practice. Final is pretty easy. However, I do not think he is as friendly and willing to help students as others said...especially during his OHs

Aside from his highly confusing exam questions, the homework problems are REALLY hard. You are basically required to build extra complicated codes based on his lectures navigating basic R and some library stuff. I believe taking STATS 20 is not enough to prepare this class. Be sure to come up with decent programming skills to survive in this class.

Pros : His lectures are so organized that you can easily study via the videos on CCLE and the lecture notes. He gives lots of extra credits toward the end of quarter.

He pretty much gives you a free 20% just for completing lecture quizzes and participating on campuswire. There are 6 homeworks which are moderately difficult, but the instructions are clear so it is easy to see if you were right. Midterm is difficult but he added some points for everyone's midterm. Final much easier than midterm

To my own experience, I don't think this class is as hard as other people claimed it to be. Dr. Chen gave us his old exams as practice exams, and I have taken both midterm and final, so I can be sure that the difficulty in my class and the previous class is at the same level. Although Dr. Chen said that this is a coding class, Stat102A is no way compared to CS31 in which I used to spend at least 5-10 hrs or even more for each project, it may be an easier version of PIC10A. He does test some conceptual details, but he reminds students that he will do so before the test. As long as you watch his youtube lectures and take notes, and STUDY, you will be totally fine. The only thing is that I think he didn't spend enough time on numerical methods/ Randomization/Bootstrap tests (probably because it is summer). If you have taken Numerical Methods MATH151A, you will have no problem understanding the material, but if you have not, spend some more time on the internet. Otherwise, I don't really have anything to complain about Dr. Chen. Nice summer class!!!

This class was not easy, but it is very doable if you put in the work. Not to mention, Miles Chen is probably the best Statistics professor I have ever come across. His lectures are well organized and clear and his exams are very fair (plus, he has a cute dog which you may see if you go to live lecture). The homework projects took me some time, so I'd start early and not overload on other difficult classes. Overall I learned a lot in this class and I would gladly take any other class taught by Miles Chen.

Note: This review is for Winter 2021, a quarter conducted remotely for this class.

I thoroughly enjoyed Professor Chen's STATS 102A class. The first half was an in-depth review of STATS 20 (with a little extra around classes and regex (i.e., regular expressions), with the latter half shifting toward use in computational statistics. Professor Chen was extremely clear about how to approach some situations and how to use code in such instances, helping provide a nice picture of how to run simulations with R.

I've heard many people describe some of the homework assignments as difficult, but I found them to be manageable (in fact, I sort of wished there was a little more extension to some assignments). For the exams, the online version of this course had two-hour exams (midterm and final) that were open book; it was more about application and less about memorization, which I found more practical and representative of a real-life situation. Overall, his grading scheme is rather generous, and you should not worry too much about your grade in the course

TL;DR: A solid STATS 20 background can be extremely helpful, but nonetheless the class is not bad if you actively listen/pay attention in lecture. Grades are generally not too stressful.

I really enjoyed taking this class with Miles. I had a bad experience with Stats 20 that left me feeling really nervous for 102A. While the homework assignments were challenging, they really helped me understand the concepts we learned in lecture and also made me feel more confident in my R capabilities. The content of the class is super interesting. Miles is very approachable and helpful in OH, and overall super encouraging and wants his students to succeed. I also really liked how we used Campuswire for this class, as everyone is super helpful and quick to answer questions. All of the exams are very fair and the grade breakdown is fair as well. I highly recommend taking this class with Miles!

Miles is easily one of the best professors I have had at UCLA. I came into this class terrified of coding and even just looking at R from my experience in stats 20, and now coming out of it feel confident with coding in R and even motivated to learn more languages. The class isn't super easy and the homework definitely is time consuming and challenging but they are definitely doable and you learn a lot from it. The midterm was far more difficult than the final for me personally, but across the board all of Miles homeworks and exams are very fair.

I really like Miles and this he is a great professor however this class is hard. He screen records all of his lectures so you can go back if you miss one or need to review but he does take attendance in class. He gives 6 homework assignments and you have about a week and a half to do each. START EARLY. They are tough and take a long time to do. Go to your TA for help. Miles is very strict about not looking at other student's code but the TA can be more lenient. His midterm is difficult but he gives a practice midterm and the structure and types of questions are basically the same. The material taught after the midterm is totally different (less coding heavy and more concept-based). His final is not at all like the midterm (not cumulative) and is much easier. Overall I really enjoyed this class even though it was difficult.

Somehow, the stats dept has the worst lecturers for the proof based classes, but for the coding side, they have the best professors around. Like Tsiang, Chen is one of my favorite professors here at UCLA.

His lectures, while potentially dry, are actually interesting, and you build on a lot of the concept you learn from Stats 20. You start going into optimization techniques, different common packages, and some object oriented topics.

Chen may come off cold in office hours, but tbh, the questions people ask him are kinda dumb. He's not going to troubleshoot your code, nor blatantly tell you how to do it. And honestly, his homework is definitely doable - you just have to understand the notes front and back, and know how to apply it(basically, don't be lazy). But he's an interesting person, and once you start talking to him, it's really chill. He's very open to helping with letter of recommendations, and is an interesting guy(loves basketball, grew up in LA, and had a crazy life). He actually cares about his students, telling you to sleep, letting you skip some classes without penalty, etc. Just don't try and cheat his attendance system - it's barely worth any points, and it's worse to be caught skipping and forfeiting all your attendance points for the quarter.