I will not forget my stats class. The prof couldn't speak english, so only way to get his class to pass was to give out practice questions, and choose the midterm/final from the practice questions. Even worse? The practice questions were from the book, and you could get the answer key to the practice questions in the library.
I, for one, am convinced that 'statistics teacher' is an oxymoron. Nobody actually teaches statistics. They draw a few bell curves on a screen, talk about standard deviations, and then give you an open book exam which returns a mean grade of 45%. And people still had the gall to tell me that I was going to miss being a student.
I loved my stat professor. He was so easy because he wanted all to learn so badly but no one cared, so he'd hand out "2pts" for answering his questions randomly during class. The best one was when he asked for the definition of something and I read back the oddly worded back words definition that he told us the day before. He thought I was fucking brilliant. I racked up so many points. Towards the end of the semester I asked him (since different assignments are weighted differently) what kind of points these would be...percentage points, wink wink? Aw sure, he said. Even with half assing the exams, I think I ended up with an A average. I heart Bin Wang.
Sometimes, I read some internet article, that has a link, that then has another link, which has another link . . . or, I'm Googling something that leads me off to another something, which takes me off to something else entirely . . . and, at some point, I go -"Gah! I totally lost what I was supposed to be doing" and think I've wasted a bunch of time. But, whenever I "accidentally" look at /r boobs or something, and end up then looking at /r handbra, or whatever until I run out of click on next clicks . . . I never seem to think it was a waste of time. There are so. many. sets. of nice boobs. And, I want to see them all. Just sayin
My stats professor was a retired statistician for GM (I think). He had some interesting anecdotes about quality control on the assembly line and using his job title to get out of jury duty. But, he didn't believe in awarding grades based on exams. I think that he just enjoyed teaching in a classroom. So, we had a ton of online assignments, and while we did have exams he would include a "cheat sheet" with step-by-step instructions on how to perform different functions. I suppose the only "test" was whether or not you performed the appropriate task given the question. Easiest A ever.
I'm not even sure how to respond to that, other than to say statistics is a lot more than the normal distribution and a mean grade of a 45 is only statistically meaningful if the distribution of grades is itself normal rather than skewed. The median grade would likely paint a clearer picture of a class' exam performance. But I'm sure you learned that while scouring your textbook for the answers to your open exam.
Every once in a while I wonder if my expensive liberal arts education was really worth anything and then I listen to people talking about statistics classes and realize that, no, it really wasn't, but at least I didn't have to take statistics.
Yeah...especially since even while doing a meta-analysis, I've never used anything I learned in stats. Software does the calculations. We just gather and enter data. Everything I need to know I learned in a basic "How to Perform & Be a Consumer of Evidence" class (the formal name escapes me at the moment). I think stats as a pre-req for us was a weed-out for the complete mongoloids.
Most people I talk to with arts degrees concur that they are useless (myself included), but I always say "You can still become a network TV political pundit." I think they are just too popular, and get more popular every year. The ratio of arts students to applied sciences in America is somewhere near 3:1 now. That's nuts. Arts is such an unpredictable industry, not to mention super-hard to become a professional in. You could be super-talented and work your ass off at, and nothing happens in the career you've aspired your whole life for while the asshole hacks and charlatans that surround you thrive. So eclectic, too.
I imagine you doing this pretty much exactly like the guy from Return of the Jedi watching Jabba's tail. <a class="postlink" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=qNXEs2JFe-Y&t=7" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... 2JFe-Y&t=7</a>
Shirt came today. What kinda bullshit is this? "The free gift you requested was unavailable at this time. As stated in the terms of the offer, we have substituted with an item of equal or greater value." I beg to differ. Knight Rider is hardly equal and certainly not greater than A Team. Pfff. Oh well, at least I found out that size 'male' means XL.
Yeah, I think all of my stats classes were open note/book testing. I liked my into to stats teacher just because he was super friendly. My two business stats teachers were those type of insanely smart people who knew how to apply the math to real world jobs. One was a big wig at P and G and made retarded money. It was in his class I learned that learning and knowing how to apply high level math skills can be insanely helpful in your career path.
[quote="Angel_1756]...and one call from someone with their penis STUCK IN A TOASTER.[/quote] Well if you know of a better way to get a jammed Pop Tart out of a toaster, I'm all ears...
Dude. The A Team's rapist bassmobile was badass, but we're talking about a bulletproof talking car that makes wisecracks. 80's-STYLE WISECRACKS. And the Hoff. And that music score. The A Team had all those guns and they never killed anybody! Give me AirWolf or give me death. Jan Michael Vincent FTW. That goes double for The Fall Guy and his awesome pick-up truck.
In the same vein... I started a discussion with some friends, and I'll throw it to you guys: what is the best written TV show theme? Before you answer, let me explain how we debated it - we used two categories, Instrumental and Song (with lyrics). Also, we eliminated any song that wasn't originally written for a show (i.e. we didn't include the theme to "The Wonder Years").
Tough one! My knee jerk reaction which I will possibly later decide is lame and come up with superior answers: Instrumental: MASH or Knight Rider Song: Brady Bunch or Cheers