As many know, there are ongoing committees in both the Weissman and Zicklin Schools working toward improving the quantitative skills of our undergraduates. A central question I’ve heard in both committees is how much calculus, probability and statistics an undergraduate college student should study. On this point, Harvey Mudd College mathematician Arthur Benjamin argued for much more of the latter at this year’s TED conference. I am not necessarily endorsing nor agreeing; just sharing…
www.ted.com/talks/arthur_benjamin_s_formula_for_changing_math_education.html (3 minutes)
Somewhere, in each of my upper-level classes, I manage to say, ” . . . and you want to appeal to two standard deviations from the mean in targeting audience taste in music.” Now, I know that “taste in music” can’t be quantified, but, for the sake of argument, it’s a rather slipshod way of saying that you can’t expect to make immediate money if you’re niche marketing either music for early adopters or music for laggards (e.g., http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKqkcHvJN9k vs. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v0KVFg5ZFxw). But this is coming from a guy who knows no statistics and even less about calculus. I can certainly use a good dose of both.