SDS 4030
Statistics for Data Science II
This builds on the foundation from the first course (SDS 3030) and further develops the theory of statistical hypotheses testing. It also covers advanced computer intensive statistical methods, such as the Bootstrap, that will make extensive use of R. The emphasis of the course is to expose students to modern statistical modeling tools beyond linear models that allow for flexible and tractable interaction among response variables and covariates/feature sets. Statistical modeling and analysis of real datasets is a key component of the course. Prerequisites: Please see eligibility rules.
Instructors
Reviews
This individual does not understand WashU values. The lack of being able to think for yourself and bring in outside materials shows a lack of openness to learning from students on his part. An only use my lectures slide mentality is not a WashU value. As a student who loves rigor, this class is unchallenging and lacks depth of learning.
5/12/2026
Super nice and responds really fast on piazza! Assigns a lot of homework questions but is not a harsh grader (on homework and on exams). highly recommend taking a class with Bill!!
4/28/2026
Bill was a good teacher throughout this semester, I honestly felt like I learned in his class. There were 2 exams both 25% of your grade, so if you messed up a little bit your grade suffered greatly. He graded nice on the exams though, in my opinion. He gave such long homework though, make sure you start a couple days prior to the due date.
4/15/2026
Bill has good slides and lectures overall. Homework is a little time consuming but is fair. Exams are generally fair but a little hard to do in the 50 min time frame and have some tricky questions. The final project which in theory should boost your grade is graded incredibly harshly on top of being time consuming which is rather counterintuitive.
12/17/2025
Really kind and caring professor that gives fair exams, it isn't difficult to do well if you do the homeworks and study
5/1/2025
We never got our midterm projects (from March) OR our final project back. We never even got to see what score we got on them. I'm pretty sure she never graded them and then just gave everybody an A in the class because the deadline for submitting grades was approaching fast. If I wanted to learn with no feedback I would go to YouTube. 0/10
5/28/2024
The homework in this class is weekly with tons of math and programming that take 6-10 hours to complete. This class is tedious and hard, but it does an amazing job of teaching you useful and practical math and computer science methods to solve real-world data science problems. Biggest issue is the lack of feedback -- I got no comments on anything.
4/30/2024
Professor Ding is awesome! Her class is hard, don't get me wrong, but she gives you the best tools to succeed that she can. Exams are only 30% of her class and she allows a one-sided cheat sheet and gives you a study guide. It is a difficult class and you have to put in the work, but Professor Ding gives great lectures and grades with kindness.
3/5/2024