UC Davis Working Professional (Bay Area) MBA course review
MGB 203A: Statistics with Bill Ellis
Date evaluated: Winter 2009 at the Bay Area Working Professional San Ramon campus.
Official course description: Introduces statistics and data analysis for managerial decision-making. Descriptive statistics, principles of data collection, sampling, quality control, statistical inference. Application of data-analytic methods to problems in marketing, finance, accounting, production, operations and public policy.
The real course description: Data analysis techniques, sampling theory, hypothesis testing, statistical estimation. Lots of coverage on the math, which was silly because we didn’t do anything manually, we used excel and plug-ins for all problem solving. Lots of homework, which was necessary. The tests were difficult, and we all lost marks for stupid reasons: Brad got dinged for not writing “Dear Boss” on a question that asked him to summarize a data analysis to his employer.
The professor: Bill is a competent instructor working with complicated course material. I felt that he could have focused more on practical applications of the material, but the mechanics of stats are difficult.
The course: I think we should have skimmed over the math and focused more on why the tools are important and how to use them effectively. The lectures were long and difficult to follow. The textbook was horrible, poorly written and unsuitable both for a light ‘management’ approach to stats and also for a heavier ‘math’ approach.
The grade: I got an A. I give Bill and the course a B.