About to start my online Stats course. Any advice?

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So... I know nothing about Stats. I start in exactly one month and I would like to get a head start. Tell me everything!! I am going to cut and paste all of it in a Word file and get studying. Thank you ahead of time!

PS - I start in one month but I will be appreciative of advice all semester long!

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Khan Academy - this will give you a great overview of the concepts

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Specializes in Hospice, Palliative Care.

Good day:

Symbol Sheet / SWT / Brown, TC3 and http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/matthew.holian/pdf/col10522-1.40.pdf may be of interest.

Thank you.

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Specializes in Critical Care, Education.

There is a lot of academic research which indicates that Stats is one of the worst courses (in terms of student outcomes) to take online. Classroom is by far the best... because unless you have a very strong math background, the quality of your interaction with your instructor will be the key to success. A good stats teacher can explain concepts a way that jibes with your own frames of reference. Good luck. Make sure you have a tutor lined up just in case.

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Specializes in Hospice Nursing.
There is a lot of academic research which indicates that Stats is one of the worst courses (in terms of student outcomes) to take online. Classroom is by far the best... because unless you have a very strong math background, the quality of your interaction with your instructor will be the key to success. A good stats teacher can explain concepts a way that jibes with your own frames of reference. Good luck. Make sure you have a tutor lined up just in case.

I can vouch for this as I barely scraped by with a "c" in an online stats class. I used Khan academy and the college's tutoring services. It was not a good experience at all!!

If I had to do it over again, I would take it in person

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Hi there. Thanks for sharing. The bad news is that I can't take a traditional course. That isn't an option. The good news is that Stats is my final course. I have a 4.0 in prereqs and I can afford the C.

I can vouch for this as I barely scraped by with a "c" in an online stats class. I used Khan academy and the college's tutoring services. It was not a good experience at all!!

If I had to do it over again, I would take it in person

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Specializes in Hospice Nursing.
Hi there. Thanks for sharing. The bad news is that I can't take a traditional course. That isn't an option. The good news is that Stats is my final course. I have a 4.0 in prereqs and I can afford the C.

I understand. There are a tremendous number of resources online. I used Statistics for Dummies but did not find it that helpful. Best of luck to you!

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I took an online Stat class. Math is not my strong point but I'm not terrible at it either if I can grasp the concepts being put forward. I wasn't a fan of online stats for the reason that there was no face to face interaction with the professor and having to explain what i was having difficulty with via email was very hard...as was the teachers explanation via email.

Luckily we used mystatlab and it had a tool that would walk you through the homework questions. Google was my friend with online stats too. When what the book was presenting just didn't make any sense to me or I got stuck on a certain step of a problem, I would check out khan academy and if that didn't help, i'd google it and always seemed to find a site that would break it down in a way that I understood.

I'd suggest finding such websites and adding them to your 'favorites' so they are easily accessible when you need them. Best of luck. BTW as difficut as I found stats online to be, I did end up with an A :)

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I took an online Stat class. Math is not my strong point but I'm not terrible at it either if I can grasp the concepts being put forward. I wasn't a fan of online stats for the reason that there was no face to face interaction with the professor and having to explain what i was having difficulty with via email was very hard...as was the teachers explanation via email.

Luckily we used mystatlab and it had a tool that would walk you through the homework questions. Google was my friend with online stats too. When what the book was presenting just didn't make any sense to me or I got stuck on a certain step of a problem, I would check out khan academy and if that didn't help, i'd google it and always seemed to find a site that would break it down in a way that I understood.

I'd suggest finding such websites and adding them to your 'favorites' so they are easily accessible when you need them. Best of luck. BTW as difficut as I found stats online to be, I did end up with an A :)

This was almost exactly my experience. I had to put a LOT of time into my online stats class. I'm talking about spending 4+ hours on a short homework assignment. I utilized the same resources as the above poster, though, and while it was one of the hardest classes I have ever taken, I did wind up pulling an A in the end.

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Specializes in ICU, Pre-Op, OR, PACU.

Along with the suggestion of khan academy, make sure you do a thorough search on youtube as well! Sometimes you have to play with the wording a bit to get the result you're looking for, but it saved me a lot of time by searching for what I wanted to know how to do. I took my class online as well and the instructor recommended we use a specific calculator and buy the calculator manual companion for the book we were using with the class. I however, had a different calculator than what the instructor recommended and found youtube to be my savior in figuring out how to do things.

I had quite a rough start to my class and was sure I would end up with a B or C, but the last half of the class I sucked it up and ended the class with a 4.0. It was hard, but it is possible! Don't give up and don't be afraid, while this class sounds like "math" it is NOT (IMO) a typical math class. It is very theory based, a lot of calculator use, and some random math concepts thrown on top.

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Specializes in Hospitalist Medicine.

If you've had Trig or Calculus and know how to find the area under the curve, then Stats isn't too difficult. I took Stats online, but I also had the benefit of an amazing instructor. She should teach other college professors how to conduct online courses :)

I second the suggestion for Khan Academy. While I didn't need to use it for Stats, it got me through Organic Chem with a 4.0 :)

Back to Stats: I feel like repetition is the key with math. The more practice problems I did, the better I understood the concepts. Stats is one of those courses that builds on prior concepts, so make sure you understand everything before moving on to the next.

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Specializes in Hospital Education Coordinator.

It is vital that you do not get behind in this class. Communicate with the instructor as needed. I took it online and had no problem, but it was a well-designed course. However, if you miss one concept then you will miss the next one because they build on each other. I got emails and phone numbers of others in my class and we had study sessions as conference calls.

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