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Stats 201

vdy
edited March 2015 in General
Do you recommend taking Stats 201 distance ed with Tim Swartz or in lecture with Scott Pai? I've never taken distance ed before so I'm not sure what to expect.

Comments

  • Scott Pai got chinese accent, if you can understand his accent, you'll be fine. His midterms are ok, but his finals are pretty tough, but i guess that's just cause i guess the material after the 2nd midterm is pretty tough anyways.
    I don't know anything about the distance ed thing so i can't comment on that.
  • Hi,

    I'm taking it distance ed right now, and it isn't that bad. You just gotta read the textbook and do 4 little assignments throughout the semester.

    The only thing is that there is no support from the prof or the TM whatsoever (Our TM will have been out of the country for a month this semester, and doesn't seem to be replying to questions on Canvas). You'll be pretty much on your own...
  • @MXC - Thanks! Was his accent hard to understand? 

    @Apsalar - How much reading per week did you guys have? Did you have to purchase that expensive launchpad subscription thing along with the textbook? That's kind of my deciding factor at this point...
  • I'm a taiwanese canadian, and he's taiwanese, so I had no problems, but I think he's totally alright. Although if you look at some of the rate my profs, a few ppl had problems.
  • @MXC - Yeah, some reviews about him don't sound good. Are his exams like his practice questions and lecture notes? 
  • From what i can recall, yeah they are quite close. But take that with a grain of salt.
    Actually if you can do all the assignments he gives, you should be fine.
  • edited March 2015
    Hi vdy,

    I think there is a Statsportal subscription that comes along with the textbook, but it's not used in the class. There must be a way to either buy a used textbook or an online version, and skip Statsportal.

    I procrastinate a lot, so I usually do the readings on the weekend before the assignments are due.It usually takes me a bit over a day, and it's only once every 2-3 weeks.
  • MXC
    edited March 2015
    I just borrowed the textbook from the library whenever I needed it to study/do hw

    edit: Oh, and i forgot, I have a torrented ebook version
  • @MXC thanks so much, I just torrented the ebook as well hahaha

    @Apsalar - Thanks! I'll probably just use the ebook. I'm not strong in math (but this class has no prereq)... Do you think it was easy overall? 
  • Hi vdy,

    Yes, it is pretty easy so far. There isn't that much math involved, and there's always a formula you can use (mean, standard deviation, that kind of stuff).

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