STAT 5700 - Probability

Undergraduate introductory statistics course covering basics of statistical probability, including basic counting rules and set theory, expectations, variance, and covariance of random variables, discrete and continuous probability distributions, moment generating functions, multivariate probability distributions, conditional and joint probability, independence, and transformations of random variables. (~20 students). Taught in Spring 2026, Fall 2025

Course Objectives – after this course, you will be able to:

• Use counting techniques, set theory, and properties of probability to compute probabilities of events.
• Formulate & work with probabilistic models for real-world phenomenon using discrete and continuous random variables.
• Recognize common distributions and how they relate to real-world phenomenon.
• Compute and interpret expectation and variance of random variables.
• Compute and interpret covariance and correlation between jointly distributed variables.

Textbook: Mathematical Statistics with Applications, 7th edition, by Wackerly, Mendenhall, and Scheaffer (ISBN 978-0-495-11081-1). We will cover material from at least Chapters 1 to 5 of the textbook in this course.