Reflection on Stats and Probability at Fowler High School

The course of Statistics and Probability was a great course at Fowler High School. I
learned a lot of formulas and methods to calculate averages and probabilities of events
occurring. One thing that I can take from this class is I am now able to calculate statistics from
my own life right now like batting average in baseball, the chances that I win on a lottery ticket,
or the chances I will win the coin toss every baseball game. I have all of the formulas for
different types of situations and it is now easy to relate it to my own life. Being given many
examples on homework assignments just helps to relate one of my real life experiences to the
book’s examples. I am ready to take what I learned in this class to the next level when I
graduate.
The most difficult thing this year in Statistics class was perfectly plugging my information
into the formulas and trusting myself while plugging them in. Many times I needed to triple check
myself after plugging my data into the calculator. Gaining trust in my knowledge and calculations
through this class will help me to make and trust calculations on the job site in the future. I am
excited to take my methods to overcome difficulties I learned in Stats class to the job site.
Baseball is probably my favorite sport to play outside of school, and baseball is full of
probabilities. Every baseball situation is full of averages and probabilities. There are Earned
Run Averages, Batting Averages, and On Base Percentages. I can relate the formulas from this
course into calculating my team’s stats when I am a coach someday or calculating the chances
a team can win a game or a player can get a hit. Statistics class is one of the classes in high
school that actually can relate to real-life situations like baseball.
A difference that I noticed in the class from what I imagined it would be is the amount of
formulas and rules to calculating averages. I never like plugging in data, because I would much
rather do it in my head and figuring it out with my own methods. I did very well in the course with
the formulas, but I expected more graphs than formulas. I wanted to be able to read graphs but
we only did that for one chapter. I think that this change was worse because I wasn’t able to
interpret and study graph formations, but it wasn’t a bad thing. Having more formulas to learn
was consuming more brain space, but I made it through it without too much stress.
Something I would like to learn more about that we studied in this class was the transfer
of genes from generation to generation. In one of my projects I studied punnett squares and the
probability of my kids having blue or brown eyes. I would like to use statistics someday to find
out if I will have blue or brown eyes someday. I could also use statistics to find out other health
and medical relations between generations like hair color and traits. Overall, stats was a very
interesting class that I will be able to relate to my life in the future, so I advise everyone to take
the course at some point in their high school career.