It will widen your horizon, they said. And here I was, foolishly thinking I could get away with half-assing statistics during my degree.
My wife did more statistics in her psychology degree than I did in engineering.
Pick some unrelated lectures, they said.
Submitted 4 weeks ago by LH0ezVT@sh.itjust.works to science_memes@mander.xyz
https://sh.itjust.works/pictrs/image/224e84fa-a6af-445f-af2a-ab25dd62c9cb.png
Comments
veroxii@aussie.zone 4 weeks ago
Saleh@feddit.org 4 weeks ago
Engineering formulas be like
“So there was this guy in 1896 and he did a bunch of trials and he figured out that a+b*x/c² is close enough to the real results, with values for a in range 1-2 and b in range 3-4. We still don’t understand why, or how he got there, but it worked ever since.”
LH0ezVT@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
Scientists want to understand things. Engineers don’t care, as long as it works.
Xavienth@lemmygrad.ml 4 weeks ago
“More recent research has produced a more precise emperical relation, -4.2x^3.761+√(sin(2x²/π))±erf(e²ˣ+37), which produces results which are 0.2% more accurate on average.”
where_am_i@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
Because engineering is precise, measurable, and easily reproducible. You should be testing your things in a way that all you need is a simple two-sample Z-test.
Experiments on the humans, on the hand, unfortunately, have been outlawed. So all you get is a bunch of shitty noisy data, and yet you’re supposed to somehow make sense of it. Most people with a degree in stats would tell you not to even try, and yet those fucks at phycology departments always do while having had about one undergrad-level class as part of their masters.
TL;DR good psychology programs nowdays train decent statisticians as they should.
wewbull@feddit.uk 4 weeks ago
It always got me that the maths I was doing in electrical engineering outclassed what my friend was doing for his astrophysics degree. He was probably at the better university too (Debatable for the subjects in question, but both really good).
Did I need that level of maths? No, but it was compulsory for the first 3 years so not much option.
keepthepace@slrpnk.net 4 weeks ago
But… but… these are my maths shoes!
where_am_i@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
Damn, looks like an elaborate course in probabilistic graphical models, sign me up!
lohky@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
I have a degree in regular informatics and I don’t really know what that even means. 🤷
marcos@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Whatever course you do in STEM, you don’t want to half-ass the first semester of calculus, linear algebra and statistics.
In fact, you probably want to go out of your way to actually learn linear algebra (because I’ve never seen anybody really learn it on the course, you need to apply it) and statistics (because you want to go deeper).
LH0ezVT@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
Linear algebra, absolutely. But I kind of hoped to get through my whole degree (mostly EE) without properly knowing statistics. Hah. First I take an elective Intro AI class, and then BioInf. I guess I hate myself.
marcos@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Oh you can get through most degrees without properly learning linear algebra or statistics.
But those 3 are the knowledge that will pop here and there on everything you do, and leave you confused, incapable of understand things, and incapable of extending things if you don’t know them. Usually, you won’t even have to calculate anything, you just have to know them.
wewbull@feddit.uk 4 weeks ago
Well you need a good handle on probability to understand transistors these days at least.
Skullgrid@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
shenMask.Jpg
mask label : STEM
face label : Maths
socsa@piefed.social 4 weeks ago
Y'all are fucking wack, I use this shit frequently in my job. Basic affine transforms for grid data is an interview question we ask junior engineers.