Statistics Has Always Been a Tough Subject for Me

As soon as I started my college years I knew that I was about to face something that was going to rock my world, and not necessarily in a good way. I saw it coming slowly, but surely. Like a ghost, that comes from afar, but comes directly to you relentlessly. Indeed, as soon as my Stat class started, I knew I was in troubles. My initial feeling was that things weren't really complicated, but I did not know how to grasp things.

Numbers, data descriptive statistics, histograms. Chinese to me. Yes, I know, numbers. Do this, do that. But I could not get it. Seeing my classmates rush to answer the questions of the first quiz, while I was staring at a blank piece of paper made me feel bad. Take the numbers from the sample, add them up, divide by the sample size, and you the sample mean. Then take squares, subtract, divide by the sample size minus one....What? Why? I thought that was it. I was heading to my first F.

First Stop: The Library

The recommendations were clear from my Stats T.A.: I need to head to the library. Good advice indeed, as you can find there LOTS of Stats books and you could spend the whole afternoon reading them, if you are so inclined. But the truth of the matter was that did not help. I realize that it wasn't content what I needed. After all, I had the textbook, I had the class notes, I had my Spark notes for Christ's sake, so I was not short of information. I was short of explanations from someone who could put Stats in terms I could understand.

But the visit paid off, because I found a group who devoted time weekly to work on the Stats homework as a group, in a way of tackling all together any possible doubt that anyone of us could have. So, I started attended regularly, and although it did not solve my problems completely, it did help me to at least start understanding which were the weakest links.

Next Stop: Finding an In-Campus Tutor

Another great thing that came out of the group sessions at the library was one conversation I had with another member of the group, who had been working last semester with a tutor who provided homework help with statistics. I really was not sure about it, because my finances weren't the best, and I thought I shouldn't spend money on something so frivolous as a private tutor. My parents encourage me to do so, and really, the offer to pay for it, so I went for it.

Stats has never been my forte, but what a relief, I wasn't completely Stats impaired. My tutor really helped me, and he helped me in the way I needed. Not so much about reviewing formulas, or talking about strategies to solve the questions. He helped to see the why. 

Why we bother computing descriptive statistics. The motivation I got with the explanation of all the uses that Statistics has in the real world really got me pumped up, to the point of really changing my whole attitude towards the subject.

So, I really think that you should not regard your tutor as someone who will help you with your statistics homework, but rather as someone who can give you a fresh view, a fresh angle that you could not get from somewhere else, at least from the point of view of a freshman who is completely lost.