It was a thorough unit but could have had more theory,

otherwise it was great. This unit is definitely a very applicable unit

in-terms of programming and statistical modelling related work,

though the models introduced may be a bit outdated relative to

cutting-edge techniques used in, say the actuarial industry now.

However, the merit for this unit is that the assessments are very

helpful in structuring research and modelling tasks, which would

greatly benefit for statistical modelling work in multiple

disciplines. This is a satisfactory unit for the purposes it intends to

fulfill.

The lecturers were quite engaging, and a good opportunity to

clear up any confusion from pre-reading the lecture slides. It is

definitely recommended to read the slides prior to the lecture so

as to not get lost with complex derivations, which come time to

time within this unit. However, if you are more comfortable with

learning through reading, the lecture slides and textbooks are

more than sufficient to be able to do well in the unit.

The tutorials were not necessary nor needed preparation (you

could do the questions in advanced if you wanted to). But it was

certainly worth taking screenshots in class to follow along after

class in case you missed something as the tutorials were quite

content heavy and offered a different outlook to statistics. The

tutorials that were run were definitely very beneficial in building

good research practices through answering questions about

modelling pursuits, and a good platform to work on R skills in

cleaning data and modelling work.

Assignments where all on R and were very practical, compared to

the exam which was all theory. I felt the assignment markings

were fair, but you definitely needed to look at the marking rubric

after you received your results because sometimes small mistakes

were made. (The tutors were always quick to fix this, however).

The exams were on the easy end relative to most third year

actuarial units. However, aside from reading through the applied

parts of the unit, repeated reading of the theoretical parts of the

unit was necessary to do well as well, such as derivation of

deviances, and likelihood for GLMs.

This is definitely a unit that's worth to do! aside from the

exemptions themselves. The course is very well-run and planned

out, and definitely rewarding with real experiences that transcend

the actuarial sciences to any discipline, whether it be academia or

industry.