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Tuesday, April 1, 2008

MAKING STATISTICS FUN

I'm taking a lot of statistics courses this semester. I have an advanced methods class (we are studying regression analysis right now) and a statistical programming course. Additionally, I'm in the analysis phase of my research practicum class, which in essence is a third applied statistics course. I spend a great deal of time each week doing the following:

1. doing statistics homework
2. developing statistical methodologies
3. writing statistical programs (to be run on SAS)
4. analyzing data.

In an effort to get my work done AND enjoy some of my time, I'm allowing myself to watch MacGyver (online at cbs.com) while doing homework for my methods course. Sure, my homework is taking a little longer than normal to complete, but I am so enjoying watching old episodes of MacGyver. It helps the time pass, and I always learn something from each episode. Yesterday, for example, I learned the components needed to make homemade dynamite.

The bottomline is I'm getting my work done and I am so much happier.

MacGyver is a great show. Last night I watched season 1 episode 5 in which Mac has to defeat a army of killer ants destroying the rain forest in South America (for those of you who've read The Poisonwood Bible, it is a similar situation to the night of the fire ants described in the book). It was a great episode and one I had never seen before. I encourage you to take advantage of the old episodes available online!

1 comment:

WASPy Girl said...

Regression: Blech! I feel your pain. After taking numerous statistics courses, I decided my research would employ primarily "qualitative" methods. I'm so out of practice with stats, I think it would be difficult to pick it back up, thus rendering all of these classes now useless to me.