Syllabus

Instructor: Prof. Mladen Kolar (MKolar@chicagobooth.edu), office: Harper Center 306
TAs: TBD
Office hours: by appointment

Review Session: 12:15pm-1:pm Saturdays, Gleacher Center, Room TBD

Course Summary

This is a course on probability and statistics, with a focus on how probability and statistics ideas can be used to make better business decisions. The goal of the course is to learn how to use statistical methods, to analyze data, and to develop problem solving skills.

The topics covered include: (i) descriptive statistics and plots used to summarize data; (ii) random variables and expectation; (iii) modeling and inference: population and sample quantities, confidence intervals, hypothesis tests and p-values; (iv) simple linear regression; (v) introduction to multiple regression. The course will emphasize real-world examples to illustrate concepts that are introduced in class.

Caution: This course does not assume any statistical knowledge as a background. However, the class will move quickly over many different concepts and cover a lot of ground. While each individual concept is easy on its own, these concepts quickly add up. It is very easy to fall behind unless you put time and effort into learning the material.

Textbooks

OpenIntro Statistics. A copy can be ordered for ~$10.

Additional materials, readings and lecture notes will be available on this website.

Evaluation

Grades will be determined by:

  • homework – 8 weekly assignments (18%)

    Students are encouraged to form groups (max size 3) for homework. Only one write-up per group needs to be turned in. I highly encourage students to work on all the problem sets on their own and then meet to discuss answers as a group. Homework assignments will be uploaded through gradescope.com one week after they were assigned. Late homework assignments will not be accepted. The uploaded homework could be a scan of handwritten solution or a typed solution. Submission should have a clear and professional presentation.

  • participation on Piazza (2%)

    Ask good questions and answer other students questions. Cannot be done anonymously if you want to get credit.

  • a midterm exam (40%)

    This will be a closed-book exam in week 7, three hours in length given during class. You are permitted to take a single (8.5”x11”) sheet of notes (both sides can be used) to the exam.

    Please bring a calculator to the exam. Sharing of calculators is not permitted. Devices capable of transmitting wireless signals may not be used as calculators. This includes your phones.

    It is expected that if you are enrolled in this class, you can make the exam. No request for rescheduling will be entertained on or after the date of an exam. Only extreme personal problems are a reason for rescheduling – conflicts due to recruiting and/or other classes do not qualify.

  • a final project (40%)

    A data analysis project is due in week 11. This is a take-home project and you should complete it on your own. The project will be graded 50% on writing and presentation and 50% on statistical analysis.

Students must adhere to Booth Honor Code. But you do not need to include the honor code, and signatures, etc., on your work.

Re-grades

Clerical errors will be corrected without hassle, but other requests must be submitted in writing and within one week of the homework/exam return. In your cover letter, you need to clearly explain what is wrong. The entire exam will be subject to re-marking.

Letter Grade Policy

The University of Chicago Booth School of Business mandates a maximum (not a minimum!) class grade point average of 3.33 across the sections that I teach. The overall class scores will be used to rank the class and grade cutoffs are chosen so that this upper bound is respected. The letter grades used are A, A-, B+, B, B-, C, D (lowest passing grade) and F (fail).

Prerequisites

If you have a weak math background some kind of math review prior to the course is recommended.

Computing

You can choose which software you use. I will use R in the classroom. The webpage provides resources to help you learn R, which is the dominant software package for real world Business Analytics and is used throughout Booth Statistics courses.