r/Vanderbilt • u/Own_Boysenberry7681 • 10d ago
is PSY-pc 2110 super hard?
Thinking of taking this course. Three professors are teaching it this semester, But i saw on rate my professor saying that PSY-PC 2110 taught by Hao Wu has super difficult final and it is super hard to get an A ?
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u/Responsible_Cloud221 10d ago
I have friends who’ve taken all three professors, and I took Chen last semester
Wu is definitely by far the worst you can take. It’s better if you just take the class next semester.
There’s this one professor who teaches it who is basically a free A who allows online exam exams
I took Chen. She has exams, but they’re very low stakes and they’re graded extremely leniently and she drops the lowest one.
Wu is the one that makes it difficult
I know you need that class for a few prerequisites to get into other classes if that’s not the case for you, I would strongly advise taking it a different semester
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u/thalaya 10d ago
I don't remember specifically which class is 2110 anymore, but I took Peabody stats with Hao Wu his first year as a prof at Vandy (2019) and I agree 100% with the commenters that he's just a bad professor. I think I did end up with either an A or A-, but I've taken much more complicated math classes before I took his stats class (I took mulitivariable calculus in high school and got an A for reference). He is not clear with explaining things and is an extremely particular grader. He is a nice guy, he always tried to answer questions but usually ended up just explaining things the same way as the first time when people didn't understand.
I don't know if he still does this but when I took stats with him, he showed the de-identified grade distribution for our tests and the average was a C, usually around 72%. My now husband was also taking Peabody stats at the same time with a different professor, (I think Allison Chen?) and it was WAY easier with her.
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u/Zhuwx1 9d ago
Ok I have taken Wu and based on talking with friends who have taken the other PSY-PC 2110 classes, he’s prob the hardest. I will say, if you go to office hours and have a decent math background, this is still not hard to get an A. It’s difficult for a Peabody class but compared to any other stats class it definitely is still easier. I think the RMP for him is due to the fact that many students in his class do not have any stats background at all or have trouble understanding him, but he is really willing to explain what to do if you ask him for help.
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u/subeteyumiru 9d ago
I actually wrote one of the reviews for the difficult final and I know a lot of others wrote it on the day of the final but when we all got our grades back he’d basically given everyone an A so there was probably some insane curving
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u/CouldveBeenSwallowed 6d ago
Hao is fine, but he made me take a mid-term a day or two after it was held in class when I was hella sick despite the uni policy being like 1 week
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u/spikespiegel001 10d ago edited 9d ago
Wu is a good professor and explains things very meticulously and clearly, the hate is insanely overblown
Vandy students writ large are just entitled and complain about stuff being too hard and unfair when they’re mad they can’t get an A automatically without studying
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u/thalaya 9d ago
I got an A in his class and I still think he's a bad professor. He's a very kind person but he's not good at teaching. I'm sure he's really good at math and I've heard he's a good mentor for grad students, but he just is not good at teaching.
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u/spikespiegel001 9d ago
Alright I also got an A in his class and think he’s a great professor. Now what? It’s all subjective.
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u/thalaya 9d ago
Your claim is that people only think he's a bad prof because they got a bad grade. Your claim is wrong.
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u/spikespiegel001 9d ago edited 9d ago
Complete bastardization of my statement. I will say this though, I have definitely seen quite a bit of hate for Wu over the years skew into racism over him being “hard to understand”
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u/Evilshadow004 10d ago
Yeah I took it with Hao Wu. I actually took AP stats but didn't take the AP test so I had to do this course and somehow I actually did worse despite having done it all before and the material being exactly the same.
The reason being is that Hao is incredibly specific about the way you HAVE to answer questions, specifically hypothesis testing, and he doesn't make what he wants very obvious during lecture.
So you can do the actual math completely correct, with the right answer, (by hand btw so this isn't an anti-AI thing), and still not get an A because you formatted the problem/solution/explanation incorrectly. And he never seems to get that students want more clarity.
I don't really take stock in RateMyProfessors, and I feel bad speaking poorly about him, but he deserves his poor rating. It's just a dismal experience as a student.