Statistics

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I was just wondering if anyone has experienced an online statistics course? Not sure what to expect...

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I was also considering taking stat online over the summer so I can zip out of the country for a week or two. In-class vs online anyone?

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I am currently taking an 8 week Statistics class snd omg its a lot of work.

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Specializes in Pediatric Pulmonary.

I took an online statistics course, and I did fine. It's definitely not for everyone, but if you're pretty good at math and can handle learning independently you'll be ok. The course I took had a really good online program set up for it - not sure if they all do. One thing to find out - I took mine at my local community college and still had to go in to the school twice to take exams - those were not done online.

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Specializes in Acute Rehab, Neuro/Trauma, Dialysis.

I am taking a Stats class now, its not to bad, but when you get stuck there is no one to ask for help. Everything on mine is online including exams. If you are good at math and are able to fidure things out by reading it in the book vs someone showing you in a class room, then you should do fine.

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Specializes in Cardicac Neuro Telemetry.

Statistics is a heavy subject. I would highly recommend taking that in a classroom setting. If you're naturally good at math, then go for it online. Otherwise, just take it in class. I needed the guidance from the instructor a lot. I'm not a math genius by any means but I still made a B in statistics. Make sure you get comfortable with excel. Excel will do a lot of the work for you if you know how to use it.

Oh and research your professor. Ratemyprofessor.com is a great place to see if your professor is good or not. Take some bad reviews with a grain of salt but if there are tons of negative reviews, run for the hills.

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Specializes in Psychiatry.

I am currently taking it online, and it is a lot of work. It's not necessarily super hard, a lot of it is just very tedious and mind numbingly boring. (in my opinion anyway!) The class itself is much easier than say a college algebra class is, as far as the actual math you're doing. I don't feel like the workload is any heavier just due to being online though, it's just the nature of statistics. A lot of the calculations are just plain time consuming, and some of the concepts can be difficult to grasp quickly. I cant speak for anyone else's class, but my instructor is always there should we get stuck on something. Even if you don't have the best online instructor, saying there's no one to ask for help in an online class is a copout. You might have to put forth more effort than in an in person class, but the help is available. Every school has a tutoring center, and khan academy, patrickjmt, and youtube are all great resources to help you should you really fail to grasp something.

As far as what you can expect, I know at my school, all the math classes utilize an online website to do all homework and quizzes, regardless if its on campus versus online. This software is immensely helpful, and has step by step examples and videos to help you if you get stuck on a particular homework problem. Since the in campus classes use the exact same thing, personally, the time I save commuting to campus makes up for the inconvenience of not having an in person teacher to help.

If you are not self motivated and dont use every resource available to you, I can see Stats online being a problem. It is very time consuming, so if you don't put in the time at home, or let yourself get behind, it may not end well. This fact is even worse in a summer term. If you're taking it in summer I would be prepared to be doing several hours of Stats a day. Additionally, learning all of the TI calculator shortcuts for stats will save your sanity, so I would try to learn all of the shortcuts as soon as you can. There is one for almost every complicated 10 step calculation. :)

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Specializes in Hospitalist Medicine.

I am taking Stats online right now. It's a LOT of work!!! I have a great prof. She records all of her lectures and has a note sheet that you fill in as you go along in the lecture. It's the EXACT same lecture she gives to her face-to-face classes. (She let me come to the first 2 F2F classes, so I could see it was the same)

On the plus side, we have a longer time window in which to take our exam, while the F2F class has to take it on either a Tuesday or a Thursday. With the online, we get a one week time frame to come in and take it. We can ask any questions on the discussion board and get answers immediately. She also has great video demonstrations of the TI-84 calculator functions we need to do the problems.

On the negative side, you don't get that instant feedback you would get in class.

If you've taken online classes before, you should be fine. The VOLUME of work is more than your typical class. So, only do this if you're willing to put in the necessary time. It's not easy!

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Idk if it was just me but I found my stats course pretty simple, mainly due to my professors teaching style. I would suggest you take it in class .

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The BSN program that I'm applying for requires that all math and science course be classroom instruction only. Some fellow classmates of mine said that online can be difficult to follow but everyone is different. Good luck

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I am currently taking statistics online, and I agree with previous posts that the math is not as complex as my current algebra class, but the problems have a lot of steps to them and everything has a different formula to solve it. I will say that now things are getting complex as we are working on hypothesis testing, but I am working through every problem and making very detailed notes on how to solve the problem. I am pretty much left to learn the material on my own through the website and book, as my teacher does not give a lot of direction. I have to spend time searching for how to solve the problems using my calculator because the book can be lacking at times with calculator instructions. If you are ready for the amount of time this class takes online, then I would tell you to try it. Good luck!!

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I'm doing a classroom statistics class, but because we use My Math Lab (hate it!) for homework and quizes I spend at least another 3 hrs. a week online doing the work.

The formulas aren't difficult, but figuring out when to use which formula can be. I got Statistics for Dummies, but it covered theory, not formulas. This website helped me understand the formulas and I like the practice questions. http://www.mathgoodies.com/lessons/vol6/conditional.html

Also plan to spend $50 - $150 to gets a stats calculator. You can do the class without one, but it doubles the work. I got a $50 Cascio 9750 from WalMart and it's done everything that the more expensive Texas Instruments calculators can.

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