BST 611: Intermediate Statistical Analysis I/Biostatistics

Taken Fall 2010
Instructor: Al Bartolucci

I never took a statistics course as an undergraduate. I was terrified of statistics, so when it finally came time to take it at the graduate level I had many regrets for not taking it as an undergraduate. Those fears were put to rest from day one in this course. It is the recommended course for MSFS students lacking statistics and it is a great choice for us! The material was relevant to what we do from day to day as scientists in a laboratory setting. Although most of the cases were clinical, the concepts are the same for any type of experimentation in which a population (lots of data) must be shown as significant or insignificant. This course teaches you how to understand your data and make a conclusion that is statistically accurate and acceptable. It made me feel like a real scientist and helped my perspective in reading scientific articles with statistical analyses.

What really made this course amazing was the instructor. Dr. Bartolucci is a riot, to say the least. He made the scary process of learning statistics fun and interesting. He is a great teacher and he knows his stuff!! As a heads up, he is a die hard Boston Red Socks fan so if you are a Yankee fan keep that information to yourself. He took any questions I had at anytime and made sure the class as a whole was understanding the material. He is very strict on his homework format but it is not too terrible. Even better, all tests are open-book and notes. Make sure to buy the book!! All tests come from problems out of the book and in fact, if you do not have the book you cannot do the graded homework or take the test. The homework he assigns are relevant to the tests and as long as you do the homework you can take the tests no problem.

So, if you have any fear of statistics like I did, Dr. Bartolucci will mend that quickly. Once you get passed the first few weeks, the entire class is the same 10 step concept over and over and over! No worries, statistics is actually cool and will bring to light any misunderstandings you may have had in reading statistical analysis of scientific data in the past. Good Luck!