Question

Think about a personal or professional problem you are facing. How can you use probability methods to inform your decision? (1) Describe your problem, (2) explain your logic for choosing a probability method and (3) explain the rationale you will use to make a decision.

Answer 1

1. Problem : Deciding whether to join a particular university A vs university B for phd program if final objective is to make a successful career as a researcher in academia.

2. Probability method : We will compute following conditional probabilities to make decision : 1) P( successful researcher | join univ A) ; 2) P( successful researcher | join univ B ) .

3. Decision : we shall choose the one with higher conditional probability obtained in previous part (2). This is so because this will give us higher chances of achieving our final objective.

Answer 2

1. Problem : Deciding whether to join a particular university A vs university B for phd program if final objective is to make a successful career as a researcher in academia.

2. Probability method : We will compute following conditional probabilities to make decision : 1) P( successful researcher | join univ A) ; 2) P( successful researcher | join univ B ) .

3. Decision : we shall choose the one with higher conditional probability obtained in previous part (2). This is so because this will give us higher chances of achieving our final objective.