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Computational Statistics STAT 5772
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Hello STAT 5772 graduate students,

     Last year, one year ago, every graduate student gave a presentation on 
either Thursday or Friday of finals week, when there was a free period we 
could meet in WRT 110 lab.  Everyone presented using the teaching station 
at the front of the room.  Some students used power point slides and some 
students had a handout.  All students gave me a copy of their power point 
slides, their write up and their R script code and statistical results.

     One student this year asked about needing to do it before Friday, so 
we talked about Thursday instead.  I assume with 4 or 5 graduate students 
that we can find a time to do it on Thursday morning or early afternoon.
I give a test at 3 pm on Thursday, so I am not free after 2 pm that day.
Please send me your schedule for that Thursday when you get a chance.

     Every student one year ago found something from their own graduate 
thesis research or their own interests given their field or just their own
interest in pursuing from what they wanted to investigate and/or master 
and/or get experience with further.  The final project for graduate 
students then one year ago and now this semester is open-ended.
Open-ended means it is your choice, your decision, you can choose something
of most interest to your program or research or goals.

     There have been no weekly assignments for a few weeks now, so I guess 
when you ask about the amount of work, a good rule of thumb would be about 
3 times as much as an assignment that is assigned as due one week later in 
the class would be the minimum expected.

     A couple students last year just treated it like Mark Ecker's Applied 
Statistics class type project and found an interesting data set from the 
web to investigate and analyze and manipulate the data of and then dove in 
and did all sorts of statistical tests and data manipulations to see what
relationships could be found to be there and significant or not, etc.

     Again, I am required to require more for graduate students doing STAT 
5772 for graduate credit.  The open ended, whatever is most relevant to 
your research or career goals or most interesting to pursue at this time 
is up to you.

     All of the graduate students one year ago had the presentation ready 
and gave it and turned in the materials to me on Thursday or Friday 
whenever we met as a group.  The entire presentation set took less than 
one hour for 5 students.  I cannot remember if one student might have 
given their presentation but needed an extra day to finish writing up 
their summary or the research, but I would have been flexible on that.

     Mark