I feel incredibly stupid because everyone at U of M says it’s the easiest class, that it’s a joke. But I ended up with a B+.
When I ask if this “means” anything, I mean does it reflect on my ability to pass future, more difficult classes? That I’m not cut out for Michigan? I heard that this semester the class was somewhat more difficult, but I know how ridiculous rumors are and I have no way of confirming this.
What kills me is that I (almost) always got the math right, aside from a few stupid mistakes (hitting + on the calculator instead of -, etc), but the more specific, nuanced interpretations got me. I know what a p-value, a test statistic, and a normal curve are, but I didn’t say explain data in precise, word-for-word regurgitations.
Since some people might ask, I’m a biology major on the pre-med track (yup, pretty stereotypical).
I was a math major (Bachelors and Master’s), so I took a fair amount of probability and stochastic processes, and a couple of graduate level stats courses. To me stats was always a sort of “strange” course – partly math, partly memorizing bizarre distributions, and partly applying these with a bunch of silly rules. At some level in real life if the sample isn’t large enough to use a normal distribution then the sample isn’t large enough period, but of course this won’t get you even a C on your stats final exam.
So, everyone told me it was an easy course. I was a very strong student (A / A+). I found stats to be one of my most difficult and challenging courses, or perhaps just more annoying than challenging. In the final exam there was well over 100 students in the room when the exam started, I was the ONLY STUDENT left for the last 15 minutes (everyone else had finished). For me it was tough – other courses that everyone else found tough I found easy.
Michigan has strong students and I assume a B+ is in the middle of the curve. Not everyone gets an A certainly. So in this course maybe you were average among Michigan (read strong) students. If you have a chance to review your final, you can learn from your mistakes on this exam and then move forward.
I’ll bet you are doing even better in other classes.
@wayneandgarth Yes, I did better in the rest of my classes. I just feel subpar because Stats 250 is supposed to be a GPA booster for most… but it brought mine down I’m sure I’ll get over it, though
@DadTwoGirls Thanks for the story! I’m glad even a math genius didn’t do the best in the class. I was never any good at math, so I was so happy that I understood everything the first time and got it all right on the exams and homeworks, but, like you, it wasn’t the math that tripped me up.
I’m sure I’ll get over it, though 