The second semester class, SOC 353, focuses on manipulation of quantitative information in order to analyze the evidence. Most sociological research conducted today involves numerical data and requires statistical analysis in order to test theories. This class is a social statistics class.
Statistics is a frightening word for most social science students.
Undergraduates, particularly, become interested in sociology often because it relates closely to everyday life and involves critical thinking unlike more technical fields which require little thinking and lots of memorization. Unfortunately, social science students too often come to use personal experience as the basis for theories about social life. Statistics is easy. But, it is foreign to most social science majors and it is much more totalitarian and regimented than many social science students find comfortable. This structure make statistics easy.