Preparing for your MSc course in statistics
The background material on this page is for students preparing to start the Statistics MSc, Statistics with Financial Mathematics MSc, or Statistics with Medical Applications MSc.
Off
Notes on using this MSc introductory material
Some of this material will be covered in the Introductory Week but you are expected to have worked on most of it before you come to Sheffield. All MSc students are expected to be in Sheffield for the start of the Introductory Week.
Background mathematics
- Set Theory
- Quadratic equations
- Rules of Indices and Logarithms
- Arithmetic and Geometric Progressions
- Permutations and Combinations
- Use of Sum and Product Notation
- Series Expansion and Limits
- Matrices
- Geometry
- Calculus
- Lagrange Multipliers
- Other Topics
Background mathematics exercises
Block A: Probability and Statistical theory
- Probability
- Random Variables
- Multivariate Random Variables and Distributions
- Introduction to Inference and Likelihood
- Interval Estimation and Hypothesis Testing
Relations between distributions
Block B: Statistical Methods
- Exploratory data analysis
- Basic inference for continuous data
- basic inference for discrete data
- Simple linear regression and ANOVA
Statistical Computing using R
Many of our MSc modules really heavily on the statistical programming language R. You will start using R in the Introductory Week but if you want to try it out before you come then work through this Basic R Workbook.