Goals for students in an introductory course? I am studying Statistics for business at introductory level, and having difficulty in handling the amount of information, partly because I am coming back to study after 5 years and I didn't do much stats at school.
I don't understand binomial distribution, inference and all the types of "errors" on my textbook. I did pretty well on the first 2 assignments, based on the Excel templates provided by the course and some common-sense thinking.
What are some key points that I should know about statistics? Would appreciate any help.
 A: The American Statistical Association is actively involved in addressing this question.  Its Guidelines for Assessment and Instruction in Statistics Education (GAISE) project has recently issued two reports.  One of them describes what introductory college-level statistics teaching should cover.
The stated goals are numerous and general.  You can read them at http://www.amstat.org/education/gaise/GAISECollege_Goals.pdf.  They range from 

Students should believe and understand why variability is natural, predictable, and quantifiable

to 

students should know how to interpret statistical results in context.

It is noteworthy that they nowhere mention "binomial," "distribution," or "errors," whereas "inference" is mentioned prominently, as in 

Students should understand the basic ideas of statistical inference,
  including ... statistical significance [and] ... the concept of confidence interval.

Please be aware that not all introductory statistics courses will follow these guidelines. Courses are taught in various departments for different purposes to a variety of student populations. Some of them, for instance, aim to teach technical methods to students who will later be required to apply them.  The best resources for learning the objectives of any particular course of study are (a) its syllabus and (b) the introduction to the textbook, if any.  It wouldn't hurt to consult the instructor, either: they should have, ready at hand, a clear and complete answer to this question!
A: I think this does depend very much on what discipline you want to go into.  Everyone needs the basics,  Understand the normal distribution and the binomial.  Learn the basics of hypothesis testing and interval estimation.  Understand the difference between parametric and nonparametric inference. Learn the simple nonparametric test (sign test and Wilcoxon).  In the medical research field survival analysis, relative risk and contingency table analysis become important.  For business time series analysis is important and survey sampling for marketing.  In pharmaceuticals the subtleties of equivalence testing become important.  For the first course learn the basics and then try a second course with special topics related to your field of interest.
