uwloo

MSCI 251Probability and Statistics 1

Faculty
Engineering
Last listed
Spring 2024

No longer offered. It was in Waterloo’s course catalog since at least Winter 2020 (as far back as Open Data goes) to Spring 2024 and last ran in Fall 2023. It isn’t in the 2024–25 or later calendars.

When it ran

  1. F20
  2. F21
  3. F22
  4. F23

Ran in 4 terms, Fall 2020 to Fall 2023.

A first of a two-course sequence that introduces fundamental concepts in probability and statistics. It covers probability concepts, random variables, graphical display of distributions and data, discrete and continuous probability distributions, sampling, estimation, confidence intervals, experimental design, hypothesis testing, and simple linear regression and correlation. Students learn how to graphically explore data, conduct, and analyze a two-treatment experiment, and model data with linear regression, and interpret its fit. Students learn to use statistical computing software (e.g., R) to perform data analyses. Emphasis is placed on gaining experience with data collected from student-conducted experiments. [Offered: F]

Requirements, as last listed

Prereq: Level at least 2A Management Engineering. Antireq: AE 224, BME 213, CHE 220, CIVE 224, ECE 203, 306, ECON 221, ENVE 224, ME 202, MTE 201, NE 215, STAT 231, SYDE 212

In today’s calendar

Discussed on r/uwaterloo

9 posts and comments in 8 threads mention MSCI 251, May 2019 to December 2024. Quoted word for word, newest first; each reply sits under the post and the comment that started its branch. Search r/uwaterloo for newer posts.

Fall 2023

Waterloo Engineering Programs Help: Electrical vs Mechatronics vs Computer 1 point, 9 comments

“Anyone have advice on how I can decide which of these programs to apply to? Was initially planning to apply to Mechanical Engineering, however I believe these have better job prospects. …”

u/cogintheshell: “read my guide https://www.reddit.com/user/cogintheshell/comments/13is3n4/engineering\programs\at\uwaterloo/”

u/suiyui: “I guess you're right, MSCI 251 (Statistics I)+253 (Statistics II) are pure stats and MSCI 431 (Stochastics) is also arguably stats though it focuses more on queueing theory I still wouldn't consider our program a data science-engineering hybrid based off these 3 courses though”

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Spring 2021

Job Opportunities and Workload: SYDE, Tron, and Management 1 point, 9 comments

“I have recently been thinking of switching from mechanical engineering and am deciding between SYDE, Tron, and Management. …”

u/wagwanm0n: “Management does have a good number of coding courses”

u/original-random: “… If you're into data analytics/science, the stat and OR courses are awesome: MSCI 251/253 Prob stats 1 and 2 MSCI 331/332/435 Optimization galore, which is central to all machine learning MSCI 431/531 Stochastic models, and stuff like Markov Decision Processes, which is really …”

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Winter 2021

Management engineering question 1 point, 23 comments

“I was recently admitted into management engineering and was wondering how the workload was. How different is it to high school or other universities’ engineering programs like western ryerson and …”

u/original-random: “All of the engineering programs are a lot of work, and, in general, all university programs are a lot more work than high school. …”

u/original-random: “… Prior to the 2021/2022 Calendar, the 2A term is 6 courses and replaced accounting (MSCI 262) with probability and statistics 1 (MSCI 251). The 2021/2022 Calendar brought a new curriculum that reduced the load of 2A and 2B to 5 courses. MSCI 262 is no more a course. …”

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Management Engineering 10 points, 14 comments

u/1000Ditto: “1. ok depending on you as a person, one of the easiest, be wary of 3b esp msci332, me 235, msci 261, msci 263 2. pm/data/general business/basic mech stuff/ programming 3. …”

u/original-random: “… of changes that the current 4th years did not have, including natural science electives, MSCI 251 and 253, MSCI 302, MSCI 546, MSCI 543, and English in 1B, and more.”

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Fall 2020

Good prof appreciation thread 61 points, 89 comments

“This term sucks a lot and a lot of people are having some shitty experiences, especially with certain profs/TAs/instructors. But there’s a lot of profs who are not that shitty. …”

u/1000Ditto: “… houra mahmoudzadeh (msci251, probability/stats 1): writes fair tests, explains very clearly in office hours. Very good coordination with teaching team. …”

u/ccj_d: “MSCI 251 -> Houra Mahmoudzadeh and really the entire teaching team(also 2 TAs) for this course has been great. …”

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Spring 2019

First/Second year Management Engineering quesion 8 points, 7 comments

u/OtterSniffer: “Some VBA in 1A if you count that, then Java in 1B and 2A. Then 2B is some SQL in a database class. Can't speak to courses after that, but tbh after learning Java and data structures and algorithms …”

u/OtterSniffer: “… I believe R will be used in the new stats courses MSCI 251 and 253 however, although they are new courses that haven't been run yet so it might still be up in the air.”

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Check it elsewhere

In the scanned calendars

How it read in each calendar from 1985–86 to 1994–95, newest first. The text is OCR of the scanned pages; years whose wording matches are shown once, from the clearest scan. Each year links to its page on uwloo and to that page of the scanned PDF.

1985–86 to 1994–95 9 calendars

Axiomatic development of probability. Conditional probability, Bayes’ Theorem and independence. Discrete and continuous random variables. Special cases of uniform, binomial, Poisson, and normal mathematical expectation. Derived distributions. Sampling from normal populations. Estimating parameters and testing hypotheses.

Offered Fall, Winter · 3 class hours a week · 0.5 credit