Fun with Numbers
Before this semester, everyone had the same statement to offer about one of the required classes I am taking:
Statistics SUCKS
I scoffed at them, because number crunching can be fun. There, I said it-I enjoy calculating probability, percentages and interest rates.
The assurances were that once I got involved with the sum of squares, standard deviations, Z scores and statistical significance, I'd change my tune. However, the opposite is happening: I am geeking over the stuff I can now calculate!
The homework has required thinking, but it's definitely real world applications we are using. One of the questions involved a fictitious Canadian city and temperatures over 10 years. We made a lot of jokes about the information we were asked to provide ("what would you tell someone who doesn't know statistics? It's damn COLD in Canada on December 26th!") So, we calculated out all our information and the professor asked what all the numbers told us. Blank stares.
Then I answer "Well, what we see from this is that the average temperature is -7, but the variance indicates that the temperature can be as high as zero and as low as -14." Like I said, I enjoy number crunching.
Sometimes, it pays to be analytical.
Like this semester.
Statistics SUCKS
I scoffed at them, because number crunching can be fun. There, I said it-I enjoy calculating probability, percentages and interest rates.
The assurances were that once I got involved with the sum of squares, standard deviations, Z scores and statistical significance, I'd change my tune. However, the opposite is happening: I am geeking over the stuff I can now calculate!
The homework has required thinking, but it's definitely real world applications we are using. One of the questions involved a fictitious Canadian city and temperatures over 10 years. We made a lot of jokes about the information we were asked to provide ("what would you tell someone who doesn't know statistics? It's damn COLD in Canada on December 26th!") So, we calculated out all our information and the professor asked what all the numbers told us. Blank stares.
Then I answer "Well, what we see from this is that the average temperature is -7, but the variance indicates that the temperature can be as high as zero and as low as -14." Like I said, I enjoy number crunching.
Sometimes, it pays to be analytical.
Like this semester.
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