The unit was one of the most enjoyable units I have undertaken in

my degree so far. The content throughout the unit is very

applicable and relevant to the real world. Some of the data used

in assignments comes directly from work that the lecturer has

consulted on. At the beginning of the unit the lecturer gave us

problems he had encountered during his consulting work. By the

end of the unit I was able to use the concepts learnt to help solve

those problems. Additionally, all teaching staff in this unit were

passionate about the content and all of them went out of their

way to help clarify students’ understanding of the content.

The lectures were engaging and had a good mix of coding and 

content. The lecturer made an effort to explain the lines of the 

code to ensure students were understanding what he was doing

throughout the lecture. The lecture slides include all the relevant

material for the unit, however, the  textbook can be used for

further clarification of some of the concepts. Attending the

lectures live had the added benefit that you could ask the lecturer

questions in real time, but the forums were continuously manned

by either the lecturer or the tutors so you never had to wait long

for a reply.

The tutorials would go through the assigned questions from each

chapter of the textbook. Specific focus was placed on the

questions that related closely to the weekly assignment. The

tutorials were well structured. They focused on covering

questions that were very relevant to the topic as well as relevant

for completing the weekly assignments. In order to achieve full

marks in weekly assignments tutorial attendance was required as

tutorials would often break down the code to help with

understanding. Similar to the concepts learnt, the tutorial

questions were very applicable to the real-world.

Weekly assessments were a great way to assess a student's ability

to utilise R to help them achieve their desired outcome. 

Assignments also help build the necessary skills to tackle the 

larger individual project at the end of the semester. It  is also

important to practise the skills in the assignments as the exam 

had a coding component to it.

Overall, the exam was relatively straightforward and many

students knew what to expect as there were multiple practice

exams provided by the teaching team. The exam focused on

being able to describe what was shown in a graph as well as

interpreting R output. We were not required to complete R coding

in this exam.

One point to mention was that the exam was quite time

pressured, so it was important not to spend too long on any

question as each section was equally weighted.

One of the most applicable and interesting units that I have taken.

The enjoyment I experienced in this unit can be attributed to the

amazing teaching team who were continually helpful throughout

the semester and great at helping other students through the

Moodle forums. Don’t be afraid to attend the consultations if you

need any extra help with the tutorial or assignment questions -

the tutors are super friendly and ready to help. The Retail Project

is incredibly interesting to work on, but ensure that you leave

yourself enough time to write up a coherent analysis on your

models.