PALANIAPPAN V
Despite the negative reviews, anyone who went to his office hours knows what a nice and helpful guy he is. He answers emails fast, and really wants everyone to succeed. The class was definitely hard and lectures were sometimes confusing, but most of the test questions were doable and the class was heavily curved in the end.
Wow my grade went up from a C to a B+ after the curve, I guess it was alright
Huge curve. ~10 problems a week homework. The prof himself is incomprehensible, but the material is hard regardless of your prof so I wouldn't say this class was the worst. He is a caring guy. He constantly emphasized to us to not worry about our grades, and he was right cause his curve was hefty (since the avgs were 50s-60s).
If you take this professor for pstat-120a, PLEASE GO TO CLAS OH, Tutorial Groups. Bowie is probably the person who saved my grade in this class. Attendance not mandatory but the professor likes when students go, are not super helpful though! Professor curves quite generously but do not rely on just that, he makes this class harder on purpose!
Lecture slides are practically the only resource provided and they cover a lot of theory behind the content, rather than what will actually be asked on the tests. The tests ask students to solve for things no one is introduced to until they self-study the night before. Test averages are morbidly low, so he felt bad and curved. Sweet guy though.
He mumbles through so much of the lectures that it's impossible to understand what's going on and it doesn't help that there's so much information on the slides, a lot of which was confusing to read.
dude this man cant teach for his life and he taught material that we should be learning in 120a. AVOID AT ALL COSTS
Nice but has an extremely thick accent, difficult to understand. Short homework but he overcomplicates material. My CLAS tutor said he went too fast and was teaching half of Pstat 120B. I found the material very difficult to learn on my own, most of the class didn't attend lectures because they were unhelpful, avoid taking him.
The professor is a fair grader, and the tests aren't too difficult because he prepares you relatively well the day before the test, however, the way that he teaches the content makes it seem much more complicated than it should be. Reviewing old tests makes it way easier to understand how to complete the problems rather than looking at the slides.
PSTAT 160A is a very difficult and in some ways is a proof-heavy class and I think that Prof. Palanippan did a good job teaching and I was able to learn from his lecturing and also his slides that he posts with proofs on them. Grading was very fair and I thought the midterm and final weren't too difficult but others definitely think differently.
The first two lectures were daunting, as he went through ~60 slides each. After that it was toned down to 20 on average. He gave lots of examples (mostly from book though) and exercises (mostly from book). He is also a very nice guy and wanted his students to succeed.
very approachable professor and ensures that you learn for the sake of learning rather than for the grade. important to show up to lecture since he will sometimes give additional information on topics that won't be on the slides