I decided not to drop out of the datamining course. In fact I was late to class but was the first person to hand in the assignment. The professors had granted a week's extension in fact. I was so busy printing the lecture notes and working with one last piece of data that was only posted on Monday. I attended the lecture and chatted with an old class mate who works at statistics Canada and is now still in graduate school. Graduate school in statistics is no longer as intimidating as it once seemed.