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Learner Reviews & Feedback for Combinatorics and Probability by University of California San Diego

4.6
stars
835 ratings

About the Course

Counting is one of the basic mathematically related tasks we encounter on a day to day basis. The main question here is the following. If we need to count something, can we do anything better than just counting all objects one by one? Do we need to create a list of all phone numbers to ensure that there are enough phone numbers for everyone? Is there a way to tell that our algorithm will run in a reasonable time before implementing and actually running it? All these questions are addressed by a mathematical field called Combinatorics. In this online course we discuss most standard combinatorial settings that can help to answer questions of this type. We will especially concentrate on developing the ability to distinguish these settings in real life and algorithmic problems. This will help the learner to actually implement new knowledge. Apart from that we will discuss recursive technique for counting that is important for algorithmic implementations. One of the main ‘consumers’ of Combinatorics is Probability Theory. This area is connected with numerous sides of life, on one hand being an important concept in everyday life and on the other hand being an indispensable tool in such modern and important fields as Statistics and Machine Learning. In this course we will concentrate on providing the working knowledge of basics of probability and a good intuition in this area. The practice shows that such an intuition is not easy to develop. In the end of the course we will create a program that successfully plays a tricky and very counterintuitive dice game. As prerequisites we assume only basic math (e.g., we expect you to know what is a square or how to add fractions), basic programming in python (functions, loops, recursion), common sense and curiosity. Our intended audience are all people that work or plan to work in IT, starting from motivated high school students....

Top reviews

SP

Feb 26, 2021

Special thanks to Prof. Vladimir Podolskii and Prof. Alexander S. Kulikov for their amazing explanations and diligent visuals of the concepts as well as problem sets. You Rock!

JM

Sep 8, 2020

It's a perfect introduction to combinatorics and probability, short, fun, and easy to understand. I would like to see more puzzles, those are extremely fun and interesting

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176 - 185 of 185 Reviews for Combinatorics and Probability

By John M W

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Nov 26, 2023

Very interesting course but the lecture videos featuring Alexander Shen are terrible. He seems to be even more confused by his course material than the rest of us.

By Remy E F

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Feb 6, 2019

Sometimes difficult to follow along with the accent for material that I already found new and challenging. Needed to supplement with Khan Academy and other sources.

By Rafael N

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Dec 24, 2021

I found the material really hard to understand, probability is not my strength. I'm not saying that the course is bad, it's just is not for me.

By huda g

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Jun 2, 2018

the course was so amazing but sorry it was little hard in weeks 2

the sum of tringle i didn't understand it !!

By Rajat J

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May 10, 2021

Great course! I did have issues understanding initially due to the accent of the professors.

By Rohit k

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Apr 28, 2020

Material is not that strong and new for a math student, it should be more challenging.

By EL-Sayed H E a

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May 29, 2022

it is too hard for a second course in a specialization suppossed to be for beginners.

By Long C

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Nov 28, 2021

explanation should be better.

By 존스노우 (

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Aug 29, 2023

The absence of videos feels quite disorganized and leaves learners with the impression that they are being neglected.

By Aymen A

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Apr 13, 2023

not very instructive.Quiz are not very good.