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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I haven't been part of the recent conversation, but I have to wonder why this poster keeps making a point about regression being taught early?

Regression is not a hard topic (nor is intro-statistics in general). And the curriculum is such that one could choose to put regression early or later depending on preference of the teacher. It has nothing to do with rigor or pace. And the non-major stat courses at UPenn, which you took, are not the courses that math majors would take if they lacked intro stats. So whether or not the UPenn course was similar in format has little to do with a comparison to a math-major based course.

Can you tell us what the work looked like? What was the textbook like and what sort of projects were assigned? What software did the students use, if any?[/quote]

My textbook at Penn: Johnston’s Econometrics Methods. It’s on my shelf at work. Some of us turned to Maddala when Johnston was too opaque, but Maddala wasn’t assigned. This was in the heyday of Wharton Econometrics, several Wharton Econometrics principals taught in Penn’s Econ Department, and my prof was one of them. Penn’s Econ Department was at the time one of the most quantitative in the country, in econ as well as stats. I should probably clarify, for the bully who doesn’t know what a logit is, that Wharton Econometrics was in its heyday in the 80s and 90s, when it was the #1 econometrics consulting firm in the country.

You can’t cover OLS until you’ve covered distributions and basic stats like t and f tests (otherwise r-squared isn’t going to make sense) and things like ANOVA. You also need to know how to invert a matrix, at least for as long as the course lasts. These aren’t actually simple topics for newbies, and lots of colleges take them slow.

OK. I have to go back to work.[/quote]

Oh, and we used TSP software, which used to be great, but don’t think it exists any more. These days I use SAS and STATA.[/quote]

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