Good-bye ... Hello

This was my smoothest academic term in a long time. No big glitches, no super-crazy long nights, all this working 10 hours a week and hanging with my friends. That makes me happy. And I think next term will be even better. I think it might be more demanding, but I'm taking cool classes. Check this out:

Simulation
Applied Stochastic Models
Mathematical Statistics II
Senior Project

Sometimes systems are too complex and unpredictable to examine analytically. So you use your knowledge of the parameters of the system (arrival rates at a store can be described by a certain statistical distribution, for instance) to simulate it, which allows you to predict how it will run.

Stochastic just means "probabalistic." This is sort of anti-simulation, because stochastic modeling attempts to examine unpredictable systems analytically. This is really closer to an Operations Research subject than a statistics one, though they are most certainly linked through probability theory.

Math Stats II will be another class diving and delving into the foundations and basic applications of statistics. I expect that I will already have seen most of the stuff at some point or other, but I anticipate that we will go much deeper with it than I've gone before.

Senior Project has been really fun so far. It actually has re-enthused me somewhat about O.R., which is resulting in some interesting things happening in the grad school application front. That in another post, though.