I was initially really nervous about having Dr.V this quarter, especially since I had Jukka last quarter, and even more so after reading so many harsh comments about her class. But honestly, if I could go back knowing what I know now I would have taken ls30a with Dr.V. This class is super laid back and was definitely the least stressful out of all my classes last quarter. Although her lectures might be difficult to understand at times, she more than makes up for it by being extremely accomodating and understanding. She is probably the nicest and sweetest professor I've had all year and I can tell that she genuinely cares about her students and their well-being. I highly recommend taking this class with her, it was stress-free and probably one of the easiest As I've gotten.

This class is honestly not hard, its actually extremely easy. The professor is not a very good lecturer, and did not respond to a single email all quarter, and was always behind with content, but it didn't matter because the final and midterm were so easy to get A's on, because they were group projects with your lab mates. Way easier than 30A, very light workload, I got an A+ and I never took any AP math class in high school. The coding was kind of difficult for me, but the TA's help you a lot if you are confused.

So the deal with this class is that if you don't care about the material but want a good grade I highly recommend taking this class with Dr. V.
The live lectures have polls which is annoying, but I honestly joined them and would not really pay attention and do homework or watch tik tok and just do the polls because they were graded on participation.
The bi-weekly quizzes were sometimes kind of challenging but we had to attempts so getting a good grade was not too challenging.
We had bi-weekly homework due the day before the quizzes which were super easy and essentially a study guide for the quiz. The homework was also done with a group soo the individual work was pretty low, we split up the problems and then just reworded things before we submitted.
There were practice problems assigned but they weren't due and so I never did them.
Both the midterm and the final were taken with a group making them extremely easy to get a good grade in. The midterm was a bit more challenging and was pretty long but the final was painfully easy. One questions, worth 10 points, just required you to copy and paste come code into cocalc and then upload the graph.
Labs were kind of complicated but graders were super easy so it wasn't hard to get good grades.
OVERALL, I can't code for the life of me, barely learned the material, but because of the way this class was graded got a really good grade, so if this is just a requirement, highly recommend.

There are a lot of people who dislike Dr. V, but she is truly an amazing teacher. She really cares about her students and provides materials for both studying and practice. The biweekly homework for this class was somewhat tedious, but was definitely doable for the time provided. She posts her annotated slides and lectures promptly, and the exams were well written and plenty of time was given to take them. I had her for LS30A as well, and though the structure was slightly different, I would recommend her to anyone.

Honestly, I wish I waited for Stats13 because this class is a whole mess. Taking a statistics class is pretty important in general especially for a stem major. This class literally taught me nothing by absolute jibberish. I didn't gain anything but lost my time trying to figure out these complicated labs that made no sense. The exams are the worst. On the questions where you can click multiple answers, if you click too many or too little, you get 50% points deducted. I missed two questions on the final and I got an 87 because of this. Like what. First, we had no preparation for the final exam. How do we know what to expect? At least a practice exam to aid a little help. I know Professor Venugopal means well and she seems very sweet, but this class is just a mess.

TL;DR: This class was kind of a mess, but I still recommend taking it if you want to learn more about statistics in scientific research and the problems with some of the standard statistical practices. If you don't care at all, it won't be fun. Plus, Dr. V is very nice, wants all her students to do well, and explains the content well. I can't say how it compares to STATS13, since I know nothing about that course except it fills up quickly, but definitely consider this class since it's way less popular. Plus you pretty much don't have to do math.

Structure: This is a pretty new course, and the text book isn't even written yet. They posted a few incomplete chapters by Garfinkel(ls30 guy) and some papers by some dudes who don't like how statistics is done in research. The labs and lectures don't match up well at all, and there's concepts and things that are on the midterm/final that barely get any focus in lecture. I think Dr.V's lectures did a good job explaining the general concepts, but they didn't help too much for the labs and homework. Also the prelab videos, for the most part, are worthless. At the beginning you'll be very confused, and by the end you'll probably still be confused but a little less. If you have any problems, make sure you ask for help. Also, Jane (the other professor) and Dr. V didn't seem to be on the same page (even though their classes shared a ccle page and campuswire), and Jane referred to some of the terms in different ways than Dr. V. So be careful.

Content: I recommend at least reading the first few weeks of the written material, since p values, bootstrapping, and confidence intervals are ESSENTIAL in doing well in the later topics. I also think this class will make more sense if you actually have read a couple published studies, and are at least somewhat familiar with the statistics used. Like if you aren't familiar with seeing "p<0.05", you may be confused. I had a lot of fun learning about the bad statistics in studies, and actually understanding some of the problems. Unfortunately, I don't think the course does a very good job fully explaining the problems with traditional tests. It's more "these equations are too complicated and bad, and our simulations are so much better". Nonetheless, I think the content is very interesting. Plus, you don't really have to do any actual math. You get tested on concepts and analyzing graphs, but you never have to use any formulas. All you need to do is write the code and you'll get your p value and confidence intervals.

Labs: the labs weren't graded, but if you want to get a good grade you really should do them. Unless you're already a coding wizard, the labs are essential in actually knowing how to do the coding. Plus, in my opinion it helped me understand the concepts from lecture. I would try to do the labs before lab section, and only go to get help with the problems I couldn't solve on my own.

Homework and Creative Applications: these were our assignments. The homework was individual and doing coding stuff on cocalc, and creative application was a partner assignment that's graded on completion. The homework sometimes included stuff we never did in lab, so it was sometimes hard to figure out. They were supposed to be biweekly (one every other week), but that full apart and we ended up having a pretty long homework assignment and a partner assignment due the day of the final. (the partner assignment was making a meme. But still). I remember one of the partner assignments was pretty long, but the other ones were required very little time to complete.

Coding: I say don't worry about the coding too much. And when in doubt, ask the TAs for help. In LS30A/B I hated the coding and did not understand it at all, but even though the coding in LS40 is objectively more complicated, I found it easier. This sounds weird, but in this class the coding isn't just plotting random graphs and stuff like in LS30, it's doing the tests on data from actual studies. When doing the coding assignments, it's easy to see how what you're doing can actually be applied, which at least for me made it more fulfilling and easier to do. Keep in mind this class is python NOT sage math like LS30. It's very similar, but slightly different in very annoying ways (like srange is just range in python).

Exams: the midterm and final were a mess. The midterm had 2-3 questions that were written incorrectly, and based on a group me poll, the class did very badly. But thankfully (probably due to Dr. V), they had a "points back" opportunity, which made it a bit better. But I found the exams pretty difficult, and I think the final was harder. Dr. V was very kind and after everyone did poorly on the midterm, the final was made unlimited attempts with your highest score counting. You couldn't see your score of each attempt, but this still helped make my top final score 10% higher than my bottom score.
The final two parts with a ccle test and a coding portion. The coding portion wasn't too difficult, but it took a while to finish. If you do the labs, I think you'll be fine.

Overall: You'll learn some basic programing stuff and learn some statistics. If you despise math and seeing scary statistics formulas, this course may be for you. Though it definitely isn't easy, the course definitely isn't the hardest out there and I enjoyed it way more than LS30. It'll probably be better in the future when the text book is finished, and if it is structured in a way that makes sense.

The rest of the reviewers seemed to have had a different experience than me in taking this class. Dr. Venugopal is by no means an incompetent teacher. However, she isn't the best of lecturers and after taking the exams, it sometimes felt as if she emphasized the wrong things. You are given 24 hours to complete the midterm, which was a CCLE multiple choice quiz, and 48 hours to complete the final, which was comprised of both a CCLE quiz and a coding project on CoCalc. I did not find either of the exams too difficult because I made sure I understood all aspects of the labs, which are not graded, and the homework. I missed a few points on things that I felt were not properly explained; nonetheless, I was able to get As on both of the exams.

I might be unique in saying that I enjoyed the coding aspect of the course very much. Although the coding does become somewhat repetitive in certain ways, it forces you to become comfortable with specific fundamental aspects of Python: this is immensely useful skill development. In addition, if you plan on doing research in the life sciences (as I do) in a lab or even by pursuing research as a career, the concepts conveyed in this class are paramount.

To say it briefly, this class wasn't overly trying and you can easily earn an A if you invest a reasonable amount effort.

I feel like people really disliked her for no reason. I thought she was clear and easy to follow. The material and tests were quite easy and basically exactly what she taught. She would kind of go off on unrelated tangents if you asked a question though, so I usually asked my TA for help not her. My TA was Ganesha who was an absolute god. If you have him thank your lucky stars

I was reluctant when I enrolled in this class because the reviews for Dr. Venugopal are all over the place. This class, in general, is super easy but I would highly recommend reading the textbook as it explains all concepts. Venugopal does explain the topics but at times she confuses you. I would definitely take another class with her because she was great overall.

I was skeptical going into LS 40 because I had heard that the class was new and disorganized. It is true that there isn't much of a textbook, and it's clear that material is still being developed. However, I really enjoyed this class. Professor V is very accommodating, and she adjusted well to online learning. She was very empathetic towards her students and understood the stress we were under due to COVID during spring quarter. She even adjusted the final for us. Stats can be boring but she tried her best to make lecture engaging, and really listened to our questions to help us understand. She also posted her slides, which are very clear and well done. Personally, I enjoyed the coding aspects of this class a lot, and thought that the coding lined up really nicely with the course material (unlike the LS 30 series). The material is very relevant to modern technology and I hope to apply it in the future. Overall I would highly recommend this class, especially since its easier to enroll in than Stats 13.