3.0

credits

Average Course Rating

The course is intended for humanities and social science majors. It will help students develop an appreciation of probability and randomness, and an understanding of its applications in real life situations involving chance and risk. Applications, controversies, and paradoxes involving risk in business and economics, health and medicine, law, politics, sports, and gambling will be used to illustrate probabilistic concepts such as independence, conditional probability, expectation, correlation, and variance. Class periods will typically include a combination of presentation of new material, an in-class activity, and class discussion. Attendance and class participation will be an important part of the learning experience. Prerequisites: There is no prerequisite beyond high school mathematics. The course is not open to students who have taken calculus.