Thursday, March 19, 2009

Business Statistics

For the past week or so, I have been going through Schaum's Outline of Business Statistics as recommended by the prof that teaches the stats course. There's a one liner review on amazon, stating that "This is a poorly presented text in terms of language." I didn't quite get it when I ordered the book, but after reading a few chapters, I totally understand what it means. The language is very counter-intuitive, and it is unlike any textbook I have ever read. I did learn all of these statistics materials back during my undergrad years, and what I learned was way more advanced than what is required/presented here. I still have my old stats textbooks, but I got this (cheap) book anyway, to see the level of understanding that's required in the MBA program. I have to say that even with familiarity of the topics presented, I have a hard time understanding what the book is going on about sometimes. It does a poor job explaining anything that's slightly complicated. I'm mostly using the examples as a refresher, so I can't imagine someone who never studied stats learning and understanding much from this book. The problems are a good resource though. Solutions are provided, so if you only need to reinforce your understanding in something you've already learned, doing these exercises is not a bad idea.

On a different note, the emphasis of business statistics lies in the applications of problems, which is different from my undergraduate courses. As part of my math-intensive program, my undergrad stats courses centred around theories, complicated formulas, and proofs.

Monday, March 2, 2009

Microsoft Office 2007

I've just installed a trial version of office 2007. I originally wanted to do this because there is a tutorial on Excel 2007 that's recommended , and I only had office 2003. Now I realize that this would be a very good move even if it wasn't for the tutorial. Office 2007 looks completely different from office 2003. All the functions are there, plus more I'm sure, but it just takes me forever to find anything right now. Definitely a good idea to install the trial and get used to the new layout for anyone who's starting the program and haven't used much of office 2007.

Activating the trial today gives me an expiry date of May 31, which is more than enough time to last after the full version is supplied by the school.