STAT 414 and STAT 415 are both required courses that were designed for the Master of Applied Statistics degree. These two courses provide the theoretical and mathematical foundations for the degree. Most students find these courses to be very challenging. The regularity of work and the rigorous nature of the concepts and methods can be daunting. For this reason, it is imperative that you have a working knowledge of multidimensional calculus as a prerequisite.
Many of our returning, working professional students report that they had taken the standard three-course calculus sequence (for example, MATH 140, MATH 141, and MATH 230) but these courses were completed a number of years ago. While it is relevant that you recognize these techniques it is expected that you can implement them.
An easy way to think about this may be in terms of an analogy. Perhaps as a child growing up you learned to play a musical instrument, and you might have been quite good. However, life has other plans for you and you realize that you have not picked up that instrument, or sat down at a piano for quite some time. While you might recognize the notes, the scales, or the keys to use, playing a song is not 'at your fingertips' as it once may have been. Students taking STAT 414 need to be ready to 'play the songs'! Re-learning the notes, the scales, and the keys at the same time as you are learning new concepts that involve these skills is often too much to handle and you get behind, and getting behind is no fun at all.
The review materials below are intended to provide a simple review of the calculus techniques most frequently used in the course. These are the topics that we want you to make sure that you have working knowledge of before you take STAT 414. They include:
- differentiation,
- integration,
- series,
- limits, and
- multivariate calculus.
We want our students to be successful! And we know that students that do not possess a working knowledge of these topics will struggle to participate successfully in STAT 414.
Review Materials
Are you ready? As a means of helping students assess whether or not what they currently know and can do will meet the expectations of instructors of STAT 414, the online program has put together a brief review of these concepts and methods. Each of these sections includes short self-assessment questions that will help you determine if this prerequisite knowledge is readily available for you to apply.
If you have struggled with the concepts and methods that are presented here, you will no doubt struggle in STAT 414 because this course expects and works off of this foundation.
Please Note: These materials are NOT intended to be a complete treatment of the ideas and methods used in multidimensional calculus. These materials and the self-assessment are simply intended as simply an 'early warning signal' for students. Also, please note that completing the self-assessment successfully does not automatically ensure success in any of the courses that use these foundation materials. Please keep in mind that this is a review only. It is not an exhaustive list of the material you need to have learned in your previous math classes. This review is meant only to be a simple guide of things you should remember.