NS
Sep 16, 2017
Superb course. I am very impressed with the way the faculty explained real world examples through the probability concepts. I wish we can have more courses from him on statistics and machine learning.
VI
Apr 26, 2022
Wow. What an amazing journey. Engaging, exciting, and as far from broring as it is possible while providing actual knowledge. Perfect balance. The only downside of this course is that is it too short.
By MD. S I
•Aug 10, 2020
This course has made me fall in love with probability. Highly recommended for anyone who dislikes probability. You will end up loving probability later. Great instructor and quality lecture material.
By Rick N
•Jun 19, 2020
This course contained useful information, but I disliked the corny, jokey style in which it was presented.
The quiz questions and answer choices were confusing and frustrating. I especially disliked the obscure cultural references, such as television shows or internet memes. There were also numerous typographical errors and grammar errors.
A good point was that numerous real-world examples were presented. A bad point was that several annoying, silly, and unrealistic toy examples were presented.
The content was useful, but I wonder how useful it would be to someone who has no prior statistical or report-reading experience. For example, some students may have never seen a p-value before, and the explanation provided may have been insufficient for them.
I also strongly object to the use of the term "hard variable" to describe a variable that is clinically important.
"Hard variables" are those that are quantified and objectively measured. "Hard data" are data that take on quantitative values, and this is not restricted to births and deaths.
"Quality of life" is often subjective, not objective, so I do not consider it to be a "hard variable", even though it is clinically important.
I am glad I took the course because the content of the course is important.
However, I did not enjoy taking the course. It left me with an unpleasant, frustrated feeling of belittlement. The professor seemed to speak to the students as if they were young children. I was puzzled at why the professor apparently did not take the material seriously.
By Francesca R
•May 21, 2020
I really enjoyed this course. The explanations are clear and, as suggested by the title, the lecturer uses intuition and daily-life examples rather than abstract and formal definitions and notations.
By Rahul R
•Jun 28, 2020
The course is an excellent start for anyone who needs an essence of probability in the most easy to understand form. I totally enjoyed the course.
By Yueqi Z
•Nov 3, 2022
Perfect! I try to find a class that can help me review the basic knowledge of probability to be better prepared for my master and this class is exactly what I want. Professor Schmedders taught very well and I recommend highly this class. Of course, this class is just an INTRODUCTION to probability. So if you want an intermediate level, then this class may not be suitable. But, if you are a person who learnt probability years ago and kind of forget the thinking ways of probability, this class can help you pick yourself up quickly and help you recall the knowledge of probability. If you are totally new to probability, this class is also suitable because the professor used many cases to help you understand the interesting side of probability ( : ( PS: if you need to do probability exercise like me, you may find probability is not as interesting as before >-<)
By Benjamin L
•Apr 26, 2017
Easy to understand, funny, straightforward, and taught in such a way that it is immediately clear as you are learning how these skills can be used in the real world. I highly recommend this course to anyone seeking to learn about the fundamentals of probability, even those who don't use the subject in their career or lives.
My only bit of criticism would be that the course relies on intermittent checks for understanding as the sole criterion for passing the course rather than longer, broader problem sets. I would love to see more in the way of rigorous exams and projects. But I suppose that's what more advanced courses are for! If this course is intended to be a gentle introduction to the broad subject with the understanding that students will follow up with more advanced coursework as necessary, they have certainly succeeded admirably at that goal.
By David N
•Nov 23, 2022
If you struggled with probability and came out more confused, like me, this course is a game changer. I can't recommend this enough. The key to all of it is allowing yourself to listen to Professor Schmedders and absorb what he's saying on the intuitive level. I am so glad I did. This is absolutely fascinating now, and went back to my old books wondering why this was so difficult. I can say in hindsight, it was the focus of not really understanding the meaning and the constraints of the applications. Where I made those fundamental errors such as "the flaw of averages", "the prosecutors fallacy", and the variance in the normal distribution being comparable. Thanks you, thank you, thank you. Looking for more courses and opportunities in probability, which are limitless or should I say have a cumulative probability of being applicable =1.
By Rose M
•Dec 9, 2020
An excellent introductory course, without emphasising maths it still manages to convey key concepts of probability and data analysis and interpretation. In fact, with less stress on mathematical theory the logical thought behind probability is teased out to give you a great intuitive understanding of the basics .Hats off to Professor Schmedders, I think having completed quite a few coursera courses, he is probably the most entertaining lecturer on here!
By Rachit
•Jun 17, 2017
Amazing course to understand the nature of probability and its applications. Lecture delivery by Karl is fabulous and the efforts put in by Jose is highly appreciable. Hoping for an advance course.
By rims
•May 17, 2019
Excellent way of teaching. Clear Explanation of the topics with to the point discussion. Diverse applications of probability covered in one course. Definitely helpful in my office / research work.
By Arundhati A
•May 25, 2018
The course explains probability and normal distribution concepts in a way it is easier to follow. And makes it further easier using usual excel function. Very well taught course! A big thank you!!
By Amir G
•Aug 13, 2019
after week 4 it is more teaching excel than probability and quiz was more "learn to find a calculator for this kind of subjects" than examine knowledge of probability.
By Yoás S R G
•Feb 12, 2017
I want to thank and congratulate Prof. Karl, José and all the people involved in the development of the course for this incredible series. The lectures of Karl were outstanding, very clear, direct to the point, with concrete examples to erase any doubts. The exercises with José helped me reinforce the concepts learned with Karl, not to mention the real world applications (the most enjoyable part for me), which also were very interesting and were the main reason the course got me hooked.
To be honest, I had already taken a probability course many years ago but this was definitely better. Now I realize I hadn´t fully understood key concepts until now and I´m sure that in the future I won´t forget them easily.
If anything I would suggest adding another application to the Bayes´ Theorem: Bayesian Networks for Artificial Intelligence.
Thanks again and I really really look forward to take another course on a related subject with you guys.
By Naveen G
•Apr 7, 2020
I always used to run away from the probabilistic world, until I enrolled in this course. Prof. Schmedders delivered on his promises by not just giving a great foundation on probability, but also by making it fun (with a good sense of humor) and exciting (with real world applications as examples). And yes, I no more hate probability. I'd like to convey my heartfelt gratitude to Prof. Schmedders for this wonderful course. The exercise sessions were also fun. The supplementary reading material was also very interesting, and it serves as a lifetime notes. May be, a final quiz covering all the modules would be worth having in order to test ourselves.
I request Prof. Schmedders to create more courses on advanced probability as I believe he would be able to make a difference in teaching probability.
By Victoria L
•May 31, 2018
Excellent course to introduce or review concepts of statistics and probability. I found the calculations of probabilities much easier to do than before starting the course and following the Excel functions. I also loved the energy and charisma of both Professor Karl and assistant Jose as well as the types of exercises (e.g. Biles Olympic performances or the probabilities to survive being hit by an asteroid). Please, please, please, do another on-line course like this one for next level statistics. I would love to learn more about Bayesian applications, for example, and through your teachings. In short, I highly recommend this course for a refresher of statistics and for learning statistics in a fun an applicable way. Cheers!
By Sushant M S
•Feb 6, 2019
A very very good course for the people who fear probability section. The professor explains well from the basic as if you know nothing about the probability and that's the speciality of this course. Go for it if you are willing to gain some basic and also influential knowledge about probability. By the time I was taking this course I was a reading a book named 'The Black Swan' by Nassim Nicholas Taleb . And I tell you there were many similarities between the sayings of this professor and the author of the book. Well that might be the another reason I enjoyed this course well. After all, a very good course for the beginners who are going to take a little step further in the corporate world. Thank you.
By Sherif S A
•Aug 6, 2020
As the title suggest it is an intuitive introduction and that is exactly what it delivers. I always had a problem understanding the different concepts of probability and mainly because it is usually taught in an abstract way, so I could not link the concepts to any useful application, and this is exactly what shines in this course. Every concept is introduced in a real world examples, so you really understand what these concepts are all about and suddenly it transfer from an abstract math calculation to concepts that maps to daily examples. And I specially thank professor Schmedders and Jose for the amazing work and clear explanation for every little detail.
By Dario B
•Aug 25, 2017
I took a probability course almost 20 years ago, and it kinda vanished due lack of usage on my daily job. But as preparation for Data Science career path, I decided to take a refresh about it and found this course. I totally enjoyed it! Even when I may have preferred a little bit of additional theory and samples in Python (I come from CS ;-), I understand that the current format of the course reaches a much wider audience. This is one of those rare cases when abstract theory is smashed to the ground of applications, in a quite amusing way. Über-kudos for the Profr. and TA; they did an astonishing job and I hope they publish more courses in the future.
By Ajay P
•Jun 15, 2022
As a person who did not enjoy probability taught in school, this course made me change my point of view. Loved to learn about the real-life examples like the recent financial crisis and probabilistic laws like Benford's Law, Prosecutor's fallacy etc explained by the professor. This course is not heavy on the math tests by design as it is intended to be just an intuitive introduction to probability. The course is very well designed for the target audience. I would definitely love to sit by the fire with the professor and burn the old logarithmic / probability distribution tables while munching on the scrumptuous marshmallows.
By AYUSH S
•Sep 21, 2020
For the first time ever i found that probability does have some really cool applications. I have always kept learning Probability formulas for my exams without even knowing their applications and in depth derivations. This course gives In-depth understanding of every rule of probability with many case studies and real world examples. Special thanks to Professor Karl. He made probability so fun and explained its applications to the real life problems. I recommend this course to everyone out there who has ever thought why we study probability and want to see probability controlling real world situations.
By Nishchay G A
•Aug 3, 2020
A very useful course for aspirants for aspirants who are looking forward to take up courses on subjects like data science and artificial intelligence since these subjects have a lot of statistical and probabilistic approach. Prof.Karl's methodology of teaching the subject is very creative and interesting. One thing which i liked the most in the course is, real life applications of each and every topic in the course is also shown and explained. I recommend this course to all aspirants who are new to the subject since the course covers probability from the basic definition to more advanced topics.
By Richard C
•Jul 13, 2017
It has been many years since I have seen any of this material and I struggled working through some old textbooks to familiarize myself with the material once again. This class really helped me refresh my memory and I actually believe I have a clearer understanding of the material than I did when I was in college. The professor did an excellent job engaging the viewer and made the material enjoyable and provided relevant examples that made it easier for the student to understand the bigger picture. I hope to see a second course on the same topic offered by this professor in the future!
By Pankaj S G
•Dec 3, 2017
I could not answer few questions in high school final exams due my fear for probability. Professor Karl has really removed my fear and I want to invest more time now in learning more aspects about this. More importantly I could understand all the examples he has explained. Now I know the concepts Conditional probability, random variable and normal distribution. For me, no more, random variable is not just calling a 'rand()' function, normal distribution is no more a bell curve which just looks good and I have more regards for Excel as a tool to compute probabilities. Thanks.
By Nino B
•Feb 13, 2022
The course was very infomative and easy to understand. Despite that concepts were very basic the explanation was clear and enjoyable. All the examples mentioned made this even more clear. Expaining some material with an example and not directly with a formula was something new to me and it worked very well. The quizes during lectures is a very good idea too. They check if you really are listening to Karl. The quiz questions are competent to the material. Exercises at the end of weeks were fun to do. The TA explained every part of the problems in an understandable manner.
By Rahul K
•Oct 24, 2018
A really no-nonsense course that helped me reacquaint myself with the basics of probability. I found the Professor to be extremely knowledgeable, convivial and enthusiastic. Truly, the professor knew his probability. He was able to explain concepts with a childish ease and amazing flow. The course is also very well structured, transitioning from discrete random variables to continuous random variables seamlessly. Personally, I would love to attend more MOOCs conducted by this Professor. A very good course for beginners as well - not a lot of prior knowledge is required.