Leicester Adventures: Stats & Seminars

My two hours of class this morning was on Criminological Research Methods - basically, it's a repetition of the Methods part of RA's Stats courses. That's going to be interesting, I guess - we'll be doing quite some things on the qualitative part as well, and seeing as I didn't take Stats 211 (I was hardcore and took the 210), I'll be learning quite some things I don't know yet, such as grounded theory. It'll also be a nice refresher for the quantitative, because though I am still quite up-to-scratch on quantitative methods, the actual stats (SPSS :/ ) has vacated its premises in my memory and needs to be dragged back. I did express a desire over the summer to re-activate my stats knowledge, seeing as I then finally realized I'll be needing it, so I'm very happy actually with this course. Also, the frankly worn out common place of stats dropped in: correlation does not imply causation. However, this common place was nicely illustrated with a graph on the decline in the number of pirates and the rise in the Global Average Temperature, so it wasn't bad or anything.

This one.

Afterwards a man from the student help centre or something to talk to us about how to critically read and write. He was obviously very passionate about what he was talking about, but it felt so common-sensical that  I did have a hard time focusing. Poor man. I did feel validated in my habit of drawing up essay outlines as soon as I receive an essay topic, but I've other people to thank for making me have that habit in the first place, so even that is not as redeeming as it could be. 

The afternoon session was very interesting, with the introductory class on Understanding Crime being about what is actually a theory, while the seminar afterwards felt very familiar; 10 students and an instructor discussing things while seated around a set of tables mashed together, except it was about what causes crime rather than whether or not the use of phonaesthemes allows people to process a word faster. Also, we didn't have wine and nuts (idea for next week?). 

And just now I got a note slipped under my door that I am to pick up a package at the Porter's but the porter isn't in until tomorrow morning so I'm afraid I'm going to have to try my patience. I'm curious, though...