Syllabus for Statistics 540: Statistical Methods and Computing

Prerequisites: 
- some classes in statistics, linear algebra, calculus
- basic operation of a Windows PC, including text editing
- access to a PC connected to the internet

Material covered:
- Web: HTML
- Shell tools: Cygwin (= Unix shell tools for Windows)
- Languages: Python, R, maybe a smattering of C
- Data visualization: R graphics, GGobi
- Numerical analysis for statisticians: text book by Ken Lange
- Simulation for performance analysis of statistical methods

Goal: working knowledge of
- basic web page construction
- high-level programming
- graphical data exploration
- some useful optimization techniques
- two-stage simulations (simulation within a simulation)

Home projects will be essential and probably extensive.

Most software used in this course is available as freeware.