no, it's not about the weather
I have my first in-course assessment in Forecasting today, and am rather nervous about it. I feel like I'm out of practice, no longer knowing how to sit an in class exam, and my time management skills feel extremely rusty. My term has thus far been a proverbial walk in the park, and I feel that when faced with an exam, I'd say: 'Oh, an exam, how lovely. What's that?'Forecasting is another beast altogether. It is not what I'd expected at all - it's actually very theoretical, as opposed to applied, and so far we've only been dealing with time series models and deriving the statistical properties of them (for which the algebra truly is awful). I thought the course would deal with actual data, but so far, it has not - I've been told, however, that the 'real data' bit comes after reading week.
For those reading this with their eyes glazed over, Forecasting is time series analysis - for example, fluctuations in stock market prices, share prices, or even daily minimum temperatures over a period of time, for example. The analysis bit of Forecasting deals with describing what has already happened; the modelling bit of it attempts to predict future values. But as the old saying goes, predicting the future is a bit like driving a car blindfolded whilst following instructions given by a person looking out of the back window.
Disheartening, isn't it? Jolly good. Wish me luck.
L'Esthete @ 13:34
