A book of (com)passion

In the summer of 2020, the world was on fire – COVID was raging, we – especially in Minnesota – were processing the murder of George Floyd and the subsequent uprising etc, the future was unclear. At that point teaching was likely to be entirely online, and I decided to write a digital book for my course see the first edition of my book here. I didn’t really know what I was doing or what my vision was (and to some extent I still do not). There were hiccups: some strangeness in rendering etc, typos, last minute updates, writing at 2am etc etc, but on the whole there were numerous advantages compared to a traditional textbook. I lay these out here:

• My class presentation and the textbook presentation almost always agreed.
  
• As I was writing and updating as I went the book could be rapidly updated / changed to reflect student needs / interests / timelines / current events etc.
  
• I could integrate practice problems / youtube links / and even additional readings pretty easily.
• It was free for students.

I think all of these benefits were great, and helped a lot, so I am did it again and updated the previous version for spring of 2022. We are now on the third edition for Fall of 2022 - and I’m hoping each version gets better and has fewer issues.

Why do I bring this up? Well I know you’re dealing with a lot. Every year students are dealing with a lot – from jobs, to supporting family, to the everyday of being in college and living life, and this year there’s even more. I too have a lot – A one year old sons and and three year old daughter, research and life pressures, teaching etc. Yet, we are all trying to make the most of life in this era. We want to teach, learn, and grow.

What’s more, I believe this content is more important now than it has ever been, statistics is obsessed with the critical evaluation of claims in the face of data, and is therefore particularly useful in uncertain times. Given this focus, and given that you all have different energies, motivations and backgrounds, I am restructuring this course slightly from previous years. The biggest change is a continued de-emphasis on math and programming – that doesn’t mean I’m eliminating these features, but rather that I am streamlining the required math and programming to what I believe are the essentials. For those who want more mathematical and/or computational details (either because you want to push yourself or you need this to make sense of things), I am including a bunch of optional content and support.

I LOVE TEACHING THIS COURSE – the content is very important to me. I also care deeply about you. I want to make sure you get all you can / all you need from this course, while recognizing the many challenges we are all facing. One tangible thing I leave you with is this book, which I hope you find useful as you go on in your life. Another thing I leave you with is my concern for your well-being and understanding – please contact me with any suggestions about the pace / content / you of this course and/or any life updates which may change how and when you can complete the work.