[kaitotst]

Lecturer: Dr. Fred Hoppe

This course was an extension of theoretical concepts from STATS 2D03 and STATS 2MB3, so at certain points in the course, it feels like a review of 2nd year, but also bridges concepts that will be relevant for upper year statistics, such as Convergence Laws for STATS 4D03. In my opinion, this was one of the easier 3rd year statistics courses, since Dr. Hoppe gives very fair midterms and exams, as well as there not being as much new content as you'd expect. The topics covered in class were,

1. Review on Probability, Random Variables, Expectation, Marginal Distributions, Covariance
2. Transformations, Common Discrete & Continuous Random Variables, Moment Generating Functions
3. Maximum Likelihood Estimation (Single Parameter)
4. Convergence Laws (in distribution, probability, almost surely), Chebyshev's Inequality, Slutsky's Theorem
5. Mentioned but not tested: Delta Method

Dr. Hoppe uses the book quite often and he posts up recommended homework questions relevant to the course. Being able to do these problems will guarantee success on midterms since the questions were very similar. The only downside is, you have to figure out to do them by yourself, since his lecture notes are very concept heavy with not as much emphasis on examples. I suggest going to see TAs or meeting him in his office hours. There are no assignments in this course. The exam was tricky, but fair. Makes you think and requires you to know your concepts very well, but not impossible.

Dr. Hoppe is a nice guy. He won't go out of his way to help you, but that's what you should expect from every professor since they're busy people. He'll be more than happy to help you at office hours or via email. You never have tutorials so you never see the TAs but if you shoot them an email, they're willing to help out too. He tells stores in lectures and keeps content very concise, so it might be hard to fully understand his lectures. Make sure to go over them very well to have a deep understanding of the concepts taught.

Mark Distribution:
50% for 2 Midterms (25% each)
50% Exam