On-line courses

by MulaiAzhagi Thu Apr 05, 2012 8:42 pm

===> I took an introductory statistics at one of the top 10 schools in the United States. It was an on-line course offered by the school extension service. Apart from the homework assignments and the mid-term, I had to take a 3 hour final exam which was proctored at an approved test center. It was an written exam. The school sent the exam booklet to the community college test center where I took the exam. The instructor says that the course was as rigorous as the intro statistics course offered on the campus. Do you think the professor being honest?

by Kris Thu Apr 05, 2012 10:31 pm

MulaiAzhagi wrote:===> I took an introductory statistics at one of the top 10 schools in the United States. It was an on-line course offered by the school extension service. Apart from the homework assignments and the mid-term, I had to take a 3 hour final exam which was proctored at an approved test center. It was an written exam. The school sent the exam booklet to the community college test center where I took the exam. The instructor says that the course was as rigorous as the intro statistics course offered on the campus. Do you think the professor being honest?

>>>My wife takes classes online at a fairly reputable school. Basically, there is a physical class with students which she can log into in real time or access the same lecture (recorded version) later. It is just like being in a regular class. In the case you have described, I don't know if the school would compromise its name by diluting the coursework.

by truthbetold Fri Apr 06, 2012 6:36 am

Sara

Kris answered your question very well. My question to you is what did you get of the course? Do you feel like you learned enough to use stats effectively? Do you feel like taking more stat classes?

by MulaiAzhagi Fri Apr 06, 2012 7:57 am

truthbetold wrote:Sara

Kris answered your question very well. My question to you is what did you get of the course? Do you feel like you learned enough to use stats effectively? Do you feel like taking more stat classes?

===> I think I learned a lot. The course I took fulfills the Statistics requirement for the MBA program at the school. I liked the course a lot.

I want to take more courses in statistics per se . But it requires calculus. It has been a long time since I took Calculus. So I am planning to take calculus all over. Right from Calculus 1 through calculus 3 and then take a course in mathematical statistics.

by MaxEntropy_Man Fri Apr 06, 2012 8:24 am

MulaiAzhagi wrote:
truthbetold wrote:Sara

Kris answered your question very well. My question to you is what did you get of the course? Do you feel like you learned enough to use stats effectively? Do you feel like taking more stat classes?

===> I think I learned a lot. The course I took fulfills the Statistics requirement for the MBA program at the school. I liked the course a lot.

I want to take more courses in statistics per se . But it requires calculus. It has been a long time since I took Calculus. So I am planning to take calculus all over. Right from Calculus 1 through calculus 3 and then take a course in mathematical statistics.

the mit opencourseware is a great resource if you want to self learn calculus. my kid has been using it on and off.

also check out sylvanius thompson's book available free on the internet. a no nonsense simple introduction.

by Guest Fri Apr 06, 2012 9:38 am

MaxEntropy_Man wrote:
MulaiAzhagi wrote:
truthbetold wrote:Sara

Kris answered your question very well. My question to you is what did you get of the course? Do you feel like you learned enough to use stats effectively? Do you feel like taking more stat classes?

===> I think I learned a lot. The course I took fulfills the Statistics requirement for the MBA program at the school. I liked the course a lot.

I want to take more courses in statistics per se . But it requires calculus. It has been a long time since I took Calculus. So I am planning to take calculus all over. Right from Calculus 1 through calculus 3 and then take a course in mathematical statistics.

the mit opencourseware is a great resource if you want to self learn calculus. my kid has been using it on and off.

also check out sylvanius thompson's book available free on the internet. a no nonsense simple introduction.

Max, do you have an opinion on 'Harvard Calculus'?

by indophile Fri Apr 06, 2012 10:04 am

Here is a link for Sylvanius Thompson's "Calculaus Made Easy." There may be other people who have uploaded it too.

http://djm.cc/library/Calculus_Made_Easy_Thompson.pdf

by MaxEntropy_Man Fri Apr 06, 2012 10:59 am

Rashmun wrote:
MaxEntropy_Man wrote:
MulaiAzhagi wrote:
truthbetold wrote:Sara

Kris answered your question very well. My question to you is what did you get of the course? Do you feel like you learned enough to use stats effectively? Do you feel like taking more stat classes?

===> I think I learned a lot. The course I took fulfills the Statistics requirement for the MBA program at the school. I liked the course a lot.

I want to take more courses in statistics per se . But it requires calculus. It has been a long time since I took Calculus. So I am planning to take calculus all over. Right from Calculus 1 through calculus 3 and then take a course in mathematical statistics.

the mit opencourseware is a great resource if you want to self learn calculus. my kid has been using it on and off.

also check out sylvanius thompson's book available free on the internet. a no nonsense simple introduction.

Max, do you have an opinion on 'Harvard Calculus'?

i do. i think it is horribly watered down and will not be useful to students who want to pursue careers in the physical sciences. and for someone brought up on thomas and finney and the terse and dense piskunov volumes, the harvard course seems pitiful. too much loss of rigor. i wouldn't want it to be the first calculus course my kid takes.

by truthbetold Fri Apr 06, 2012 11:08 am

Sara
Unless you want to pursue ph.d. or some advanced risk mgmt financial stuff why do you need cal for mba stats? While knowledge is good this could be overkill.

by MaxEntropy_Man Fri Apr 06, 2012 11:23 am

truthbetold wrote:Sara
Unless you want to pursue ph.d. or some advanced risk mgmt financial stuff why do you need cal for mba stats? While knowledge is good this could be overkill.

how do you do statistics without calculus? the minute you step out of the space of discrete data and get into the function of a continuous variable you need calculus. even to calculate something absolutely elementary as calculating the average of a variable given a distribution function you need integral calculus.

by truthbetold Fri Apr 06, 2012 11:28 am

So every time you average a set of numbers you directly pull formulae from integral cal?

by MaxEntropy_Man Fri Apr 06, 2012 11:34 am

truthbetold wrote:So every time you average a set of numbers you directly pull formulae from integral cal?

i did not say that. please read my post again carefully.

by truthbetold Fri Apr 06, 2012 12:14 pm

What type of stat apps most mbas deal with? Where do they need integral cal to solve a problem? How many mba stat courses focus on derivation of average of a cont var using integral cal? How many companies would pay big bucks to a mba to repeat a well proven formula while trying to complete a millionndollar sale?

by MaxEntropy_Man Fri Apr 06, 2012 12:19 pm

i don't know about mba stats courses because i have not taken one. but the only stats course i took in a long time ago had plenty of calculus. here is an example.

it is given that savings and loan institutions are failing continuously at the rate of 5% per year. what is the average length of time such an institution will last before failing?

this discussion is about statistics and boji's post was about the need for calculus in advanced statistics courses. not about multimillion dollar sales.

by MulaiAzhagi Fri Apr 06, 2012 12:31 pm

Sara
Unless you want to pursue ph.d. or some advanced risk mgmt financial stuff why do you need cal for mba stats? While knowledge is good this could be overkill.

===> TBT,

The name of the on-line course is "Introduction to statistics".

This particular school requires applicant for the MBA program to have taken a course in statistics. They said this course fulfills that requirement. I came to know about this after I started taking the course. It was just a basic statistics course taught by a statistician. In fact, my classmates were from all kinds of backgrounds, engineers, sociology and education majors etc.

Actually I am not interested in MBA or finance.

I am a SAS programmer who has been using the software for data management. At present I work with Ph.D statisticians and Economists. They do a lot of econometrics here. Stuff like time series analysis of data etc. I want to learn enough statistics and math so I can understand what they are talking about.

by MaxEntropy_Man Fri Apr 06, 2012 12:41 pm

boji: do the people you work with use MATLAB or mathematica or other mathematical programming software?

by MulaiAzhagi Fri Apr 06, 2012 12:45 pm

http://www.amazon.com/Understandable-Statistics-Charles-Henry-Brase/dp/0840048386

This is the textbook we used for the course.

The instructor covered all the ten chapters in the book. Of course he assigned plenty of homework from each chapter.

by MulaiAzhagi Fri Apr 06, 2012 12:52 pm

MaxEntropy_Man wrote:boji: do the people you work with use MATLAB or mathematica or other mathematical programming software?

===> The economists and statisticians in my department use SAS and STATA not the ones you mentioned.

But there are separate departments in this agency which have mathematical statisticians who may use some other software.

by MaxEntropy_Man Fri Apr 06, 2012 12:53 pm

MulaiAzhagi wrote:
MaxEntropy_Man wrote:boji: do the people you work with use MATLAB or mathematica or other mathematical programming software?

===> The economists and statisticians in my department use SAS and STATA not the ones you mentioned.

But there are separate departments in this agency which have mathematical statisticians who may use some other software.

ok thanks. i hope you'll find the resources i suggested useful.

by charvaka Fri Apr 06, 2012 12:59 pm

truthbetold wrote:What type of stat apps most mbas deal with? Where do they need integral cal to solve a problem? How many mba stat courses focus on derivation of average of a cont var using integral cal? How many companies would pay big bucks to a mba to repeat a well proven formula while trying to complete a millionndollar sale?

Many MBA programs offer a course or two involving Stata and/or SPSS. I learned how to use Stata back then, but haven't ever used it at work. And my line of work is considered data-driven and quantitative by my clients.

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