STA 6126

Description and Goals

This is an introductory statistics course whose goal is to enable the students to develop a firm understanding of the fundamental ideas behind statistical reasoning and experimental design, and to learn some of the basic techniques of data analysis. Topics include descriptive statistics, probability basics, the sampling distribution of the mean (Central Limit Theorem), point estimation, confidence intervals, hypothesis testing, and linear regression. Students will be introduced to the R programming language, at the “exposure level” (for the most part, you will not create your own code, but rather run code that is given to you; you will understand what the code is doing; and you will be able to interpret the output).

Final Grades

Exam 1: Wednesday October 2, 8:20 pm, room TBA; covers everything up to and including lecture of Monday September 30. Note the evening time slot. 25%
Exam 2: Wednesday November 6, 8:20 pm, room TBA; covers everything up to and including lecture of Monday November 4 (with emphasis on material covered after Exam 1). Note the evening time slot. 25%
Final: Monday December 9, 3:00pm–5:00pm. Comprehensive, but with emphasis on material covered after Exam 2. 34%
Homework: There will be about 8 homeworks assigned during the semester. 16%

Grading Scale

100-93  A
92-90    A-
89-87    B+
86-83    B
82-80    B-

Attendance and Late Policy

Homework must be turned in at the beginning of the lecture on the due date. Late homework will not be accepted. All work must be entirely your own.

View the full course syllabus here (PDF).