The first statistics course I took in college, I dropped just after the midterm. I didn’t find it very engaging.

What I failed to grasp at the time was that statistical analysis has very little to do with calculating the average value of a die. The average value from rolling a die has an exact answer. Most statistical analyses, though, don’t have an exact answer - that’s what makes them interesting. That’s what makes statistical analysis an art. That’s why some people make money.

Don’t worry! We will review how to compute the expected value of the roll of a die!

So how do we make money? I’m kidding —

Our aim in this class will be to develop good statistical judgement. Statistical judgement, I would argue, is fundamental to tackling real world problems like running a business, thinking about poverty, or making money (whatever your downstream focus may be).

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Quick aside — You certainly don’t need to take this course to be successful in business. I have a friend who tells me that they’re not in private equity. This friend works for a firm that buys other businesses. They don’t use python and have never been concerned about the fundamentals in probability theory and are doing quite well buying other companies (again, not private equity). So if you realize this isn’t your thing, no worries. My point is that you want someone on your team (on your side) who has good statistical judgment.

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You ultimately learn to develop good statistical judgement through experience. You get an internship, you become a research assistant, you land a job. In these positions, people start making decisions based on your analyses and so you’ll get a sense of what’s good analyses look like and what’s bad.

Our aim in this class is to introduce you to the fundamentals of statistical analysis. This will be helpful if you go on to run analyses of your own, or if you’re someone who works with people running the analyses. But I think it’s also important because you’ll get the opportunity to think about things from a new perspective.

So how do we develop good statistical judgment? We’ll learn how to think about things the right way. We’re not going to assume much of a math background in this class so we will cover the conceptual fundamentals of probability. This will be important. You’ll learn what the essence of a random variable is which is central to understanding this stuff.

We’ll also develop the skills necessary to load, clean, and analyze data in Python. Working with real data will give us practice in applying the statistical concepts that we’ll cover. It will help bring the math alive! We’ll compute correlations, run regressions, and make a bunch of graphs.

And finally, we’ll finish the course with a final project where in a small group, you will find data and run your own analysis tackling questions like — what is the impact of remote work policies on stock price, or how does crime impact hotel occupancy rates (or something of that matter). You will really get a better sense of how the essence of statistical analysis is good judgement. You’ll be the one selecting the appropriate data. You will decide what kind of regression to run (which right hand side variables, what function space to consider). You’ll make a lot of decisions. That’s what statistical analysis is about!

Intuition and Rigor