MSCI 253Probability and Statistics 2
- 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 Spring 2024. It isn’t in the 2024–25 or later calendars.
When it ran
- S20
- S21
- S22
- S23
- S24
Ran in 5 terms, Spring 2020 to Spring 2024.
The second of a two-course sequence that introduces probability and statistics. It covers quantitative information displays, conditional probability and Bayes' rule, transforms, joint distributions, special discrete and continuous distributions (t, F, chi-square, Poisson), fitting distributions to data, maximum likelihood estimation, multiple regression, experimental design (blocking, factorial), paired hypothesis tests, analysis of variance, non-parametric statistics, and computer intensive statistics (bootstrap). In addition, students learn how to clean data, handle missing values, smooth data, and perform the statistical techniques covered in the course using a statistical computing package (e.g., R). Emphasis is placed on working with actual data collected from student experiments and other sources such as industrial partners. [Offered: S]
Requirements, as last listed
Prereq: MSCI 251; Level at least 2B Management Engineering. Antireq: ECE 307, STAT 332
In today’s calendar
Discussed on r/uwaterloo
7 posts and comments in 7 threads mention MSCI 253, 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
which course is the most useful/useless of ur major? 24 points, 44 comments
u/suiyui: “Useful: MSCI 342/245 - Full stack development MSCI 240 - OOP MSCI 446 (TE) - Machine learning Useless: Everything else, especially the non-MSCI courses”
u/suiyui: “All useless - MATH 115 (lin alg) - MATH 116/118 (calc) - MSCI 271 (calc) - MSCI 251/253 (stats) - MSCI 331/332 (optimization) - MSCI 431 (stochastics)”
Spring 2023
How do you guys get good marks? cause I literally don’t know how to 1 point, 27 comments
“Got my marks back. I didn’t fail any course. Passed all of them. But I got like high 60s low 70s. Which is meh for engineering. …”
u/1000Ditto: “… Some courses are liek u just have to tough it out (like eng econs which makes no sense), but if the course is key (eg ece240 for ee, me219 for mech, msci 253 for mgmt), then you're going to have a hard time in the future.”
What are your core courses? 8 points, 11 comments
“Basically title - What are several courses that you think really define your program? Any thoughts on them, and how they went? Looking forward to the discussion (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ\:･ﾟ✧”
u/1000Ditto: “Might as well take a stab at my own discussion post: MSCI 342 (SWE | CS247 equiv) MSCI 253 (Stats 2 | STAT 231+STAT 332 equiv) MSCI 431 (Stochastics| STAT 333 equiv) MSCI 332 (opti despair) MSCI 334/434 (operations, inventory control, scm)”
Spring 2021
Classes that make you program in R? 2 points, 14 comments
“Just tryna figure out every class that Waterloo offers that makes you program in R, if anyone can help me out.”
u/1000Ditto: “most stats and econ102”
u/Weird-Bit4163: “MSCI 251 and 253, right?”
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 …”
Winter 2021
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.”
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.”
Check it elsewhere
- Undergraduate Calendar, 2023–24Its last calendar entry, on ucalendar
- Course outlinesSyllabi from past terms (UW login)
- UW FlowStudent ratings and reviews
- WClassesPast sections back to 2004, and who taught them