‘18.650: Fundamentals of Statistics’

Table of contents

  1. Course Info
  2. Realistic Prerequisites
  3. Subject Matter
  4. Course Staff
  5. Lectures
  6. Problem Sets
  7. Exams
  8. Resources
  9. Grading
  10. Advice to Future Students

Course Info

Class Size 81
Hours/Week 8.3 (32 responses)
Instructors Promit Ghosal
Overall Rating 3.3/7.0

Realistic Prerequisites

  • Most felt that the content of 18.600 or some other probability equivalent helped for taking this class.

Subject Matter

  • The subject was introductory and foundational. Some found the content to be very useful for statistical models and terminology.

Course Staff

  • The TAs were very helpful and responsive in this class, though most found the professor to be unengaging and disorganized.

Lectures

  • Most students said that their learning was done outside of class, and few people attended lectures.

Problem Sets

  • Reasonable.
  • Lectures and office hours helped prepare for and clarify the psets.

Exams

  • The exams were not terribly hard, though the techniques that one needed to memorize would take a bit of time.
  • Practice exams and recitation problems helped study for the exams.

Resources

  • Course resources were limited, and the lecture notes proved unhelpful for a number of students.
  • The textbook followed in the course was useful, and was a good resource.

Grading

  • Students felt that grading was fair but not transparent.

Advice to Future Students

  1. “Go to office hours and be prepared to do a lot of self-learning and memorization.”