college statistics?

Question

I am a political science major, and I have been told that statistics is the most relivant math course to take for my remaining required 3 math credits, however, statistics itself is not required, it can be any math class. I have been told that statistics is the easiest course to take, and I have also been told it is the hardest. I am considering taking it as a winter-mester, which knocks out the class in two weeks.... I haven't taken any math past college algebra 4 years ago.

so two questions...
Statistics... easy or hard??
winter-mester... good idea, or should I take it as a full semester??

Thank You!

Answer 1

Statistics is a class that canbe taught at many levels. When it is taught to math majors, economics majors and engineers, it can be done at a very high level and is very difficult.

But when taught to business majors or social science majors it is usually watered down and is not as difficult as, say, a calculus class.

It is an important subject for your major -- and you should learn something about it.

Answer 2

Your school probably offers an undergrad stats course geared for social science majors (i.e. psychology and other majors in SS will take it too). This is the best class to learn basic applied stats since it's focused only on the things you need to learn rather than get into theory. However, it may or may not be treated as a math class for general core requirements. Math departments also offer stats but these classes are VERY different from what you would get in a social science applied stats course as they focus deep with theory and little on application -- and they can be very hard even for math majors. So you probably wouldn't want to take it.