Mathematics 283, Fall 2008

Illinois State University – Mathematics Department

Instructors

Classes Meet

Tuesdays 6:00-6:50, in Stevenson Hall, room 125.
We will use the website directly for a portion of the coursework.

Office Hours

Please call or e-mail for an appointment.

Textbooks

There will not be a textbook for this class as it will be largely lab and internet driven. The instructor will periodically hand out or e-mail study notes.

Objective

The primary objective of this class is to help you learn about how Excel and Access are actually used in actuarial practice.

Grading

This course will consist primarily of project oriented work with work.  Grades for the class will be weighted as follows:

Homework:     80 points (Nine 10 pt homework assignments, dropping lowest grade)

Midterm:         20 points

Project:            50 points

Final:               30 points

Total               180 points

The grading scale will be as follows: 90% or better — A, 80% to 90% — B, 70% to 80% — C, 60% to 70% — D, below 60% — F. All work will be modeled on real-world actuarial practice.

Schedule of classes

• Tuesday, August 18, 2008. Introduction, Excel Basics
• Tuesday, August 25, 2008. Aggregate Functions, Lookup Functions
• Tuesday, September 2, 2008. Data Types, Text Functions, Conditional Aggregate Operations
• Tuesday, September 9, 2008. Importing/Exporting, Nesting Functions, Debugging
• Tuesday, September 16, 2008. Filters, Conditional Formatting, Graphing
• Tuesday, September 23, 2008. Pivot Tables / Pivot Charts
• Tuesday, September 30, 2008. Introduction to VBA
• Tuesday, October 7, 2008. More VBA / Review for Midterm
• Tuesday, October 14, 2008. Midterm exam
• Tuesday, October 21, 2008. Introduction to Access, hand out Project
• Tuesday, October 28, 2008.  Importing/Exporting and Aggregate Operators
• Tuesday, November 4, 2008.  No Class – Actuarial exams
• Tuesday, November 11, 2008.  Inner / Outer Joins and SQL
• Tuesday, November 25, 2008.  Review for Final, Projects due
• Tuesday, December 3, 2008   Final.

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All information contained here is, to our best knowledge, correct, but it is merely a representation, and should not be considered to be any form of professional advice. This electronic publication should not be misconstrued as the official position of Illinois State University, or its Department of Mathematics. We are glad to provide as much information as possible here, but we kindly ask that in any decision related to matters listed here you seek additional counsel and information. Comments on this Home Page are welcome and should be sent to Dr. Krzysztof Ostaszewski  at his e-mail address: krzysio@ilstu.edu.