This course will introduce the student to modern statistical programming & simulation using the language R. The core skills are oriented around first understanding variables, data structures, program flow (e.g., conditional execution, looping) & functional programming, then applying these skills to answer interesting statistical questions involving the comparison of groups, which is core to statistical practice. Most statistical analysis will be motivated via simulations, rather than mathematical theory. The course content (programming and data analysis) requires significant outside reading & programming.