Last quarter, I took a Principles of Microeconomics class with a TERRIBLE professor and got a D. I'm now at a different school and I'm about to start a Statistics class. I'm not good at math and I've heard statistics is tough. I have to have this class for a master's degree program I'm entering. Anybody here taken statistics? Is it bad? Should I line up a tutor now?
I am not good at math at all but stats was ok. You will be able to tell from the first class if the prof. if going to be a good one. If you don't like the prof. change classes.
That's the worst part - if I don't like it, I'm stuck with it because I'm taking it at night. And I can't drop it because my work paid for part of the tuition and it would be way too complicated to pay it back. So I'm stuck. That's why I had to stick with that stupid Microeconomics waste of time.
If you get stuck with an awful prof, you might be able to get through without too much trouble if you can just find a good book to go along with the course.
i took a fair amount of stats in college. you don't need to know much math to do statistics--it's not calculus. simply put: if you try, you will succeed. edit: if you try hard and want to succeed, you will likely succeed.
I got an "A" in statistics and I'm not that great in math. If you have to, just get a tutor...or get a study group going in your class. You should be fine...and I agree with the above poster.
I've taken a few statistics classes. I failed the first one, then took it again and went pretty well, then took the advanced class and just scraped through. This was for psyc. Later I added a different major (that did not require stats), and continued onto honours level (somewhere between undergrad and postgrad levels). If you suck at math, and this statistics class is a prerequisite for the masters program, maybe you should consider a change in direction.
No way, I don't think you should give up. If you believe you can do it and see a tutor and really TRY, I believe anyone can do anything.
Well, I looked in a stat textbook once. It looked pretty damned hard, but if you fail just take it again and it'll be easy the 2nd time. ^^ My motto for every math class.
I got my textbook today - the cheat sheet of formulae scared the crap out of me! I have a friend who is a college statistics professor (different college), so if I'm really confused, he can help me.
Stats can be just plain wierd. Don't be freaked out by the wierd formulas. Stats folks like to use wierd notation, and every book uses different notation. It's not easy to *really* "get" this stuff, but the good news is that you probably don't have to "get it" that well. Most stats courses come down to a set of proceedures that you can memorize. The most complicated computations you end up doing are usually multiplying and adding, and some looking-up of numbers in tables.
Oh good, a stats prof. Do you know why they keep switching from dividing by N to dividing by (N-1). Is that just a reminder that statisitcs is not the appropriate tool if there is only one occurance?
Isn't (N-1) for when you have a sample (some data points), but NOT the whole population, and (N) for when you have the whole population?
i'm in stats this semester... i'm only on my second week. the professor is great and i think it will be ok, just a lot of work. but hey, life's a lot of work...
So far the class itself isn't too bad, but the book sucks ass. It asks you a question, doesn't answer it, then assumes later that you know the answer. It uses terms and phrases that it expects you to know and doesn't explain. And the directions for doing graphs in Excel make no sense.
