Managing My Impression

I had my first exam in adv stats this week.  It was basic stats, methods I had as an undergraduate at ISU.  I had to take two statistics classes as a psych undergrad, while also producing and working on several research projects that involved using SPSS (1999 version) and computing results.   I thought it would be easy, like riding a bike.  Boy was I wrong!
I don’t remember much of anything from my previous statistics classes besides the very basics; the information that everyone knows such as mean, median and mode, or p values and t-tests.   Our professor is quite fun and engaging, but I’m just not picking it up as quickly as I feel I should be.   I feel I scored at least a high B on the test, but I’m not satisfied that I understand the underpinnings of statistical methods and why we use the tests we use during research.  That is my overall goal.  Anyone can memorize formulas and use a program on the computer, but not just anyone can tell you why they perfomed a one-way ANOVA in a research paper.

Today marked the end of my first Summer I workshop on GIS.  It is only 1.5 credits so only lasted the first couple of weeks of Summer I.   I am taking Agent Based Modeling the second half of Summer I.  It should also be very interesting.  For my final project in GIS I am going to map the endangered mammals of Indiana on top of population density and EPA Toxic Release Inventory sites.  I would like to see if there a correlation of endangered species habitat with increased human population and TRI sites.  I think there is an obvious relationship, but hope to be able to show it with data I myself put together.

Summer I has started and I’m enrolled in GIS, Agent-based Modeling, an Independent Research Class and a Ph.D. Research Class.  Only 6 credit hours total, but mucho work.    The GIS is very interesting.  We are using ESRI Desktop GIS software, specifically ArcMap and ArcCatalog to do our GIS work.  I’m interested in GIS because of its ubiquitous nature.  Although it seems that GIS software at this point is mostly confined to the desktop, it won’t be long before we will be creating reports on the fly from our PDA or mobile phone.  How cool is that!  The Agent-based Modeling class will also be exciting.  I will write more regarding research soon.  I have started narrowing down my research interests and I’m starting to focus on Mark Weiser’s vision for ubiquitous computing.  More specifically Mattew Chalmers‘ ideas of “seamful” design.  I also enjoy Chalmers’ use of Heideggerian theory to examine the seams in ubiquitous computing.   Specifically the present-at-hand and ready-to-hand transformations occurring in the seams of ubiquitous computing.