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Students

Why Take a Statistics Course?

Because statistics are everywhere!
You can’t pick up a newspaper without being inundated by statistics. As the collection of massive amounts of data has gotten easier, we are faced with the daunting task of making sense out of all of it. This is not a simple task! Many people who have assumed that it is have contributed to major mistakes. These include the 2008 housing crisis and the replicability crisis in psychology. To be able to anticipate these sorts of mistakes, you need courses in statistics!

Because statistics enables you to work in many fields.
Statisticians are employed in many different fields. A statistics double major or minor can be the perfect compliment to any other degree program. It can be the perfect way to work in a variety of areas and provide critical analytic support.

Because statistics is as much an art as it is a science.
Statistics is not a black-and-white field as much of mathematics is. Rather, it is a way to take what we observe and make inferences about wider groups or populations. Much of statistics is about quantifying how much uncertainty there is these inferences and making sure practitioners understand the limitations of their data.

Because statistics is growing!
The Bureau of Labor Statistics has identified statistics as one of the fastest growing job fields. As statistics and data science becomes more ubiquitous, having the proper training will set you apart from those who don’t when looking for jobs or applying to graduate schools.

Even if you are majoring in something else, taking more statistics courses are an excellent complement. Statistics opens doors in fields such as medicine, public health, economics, etc., which will give you an advantage over those without more formal analytic training.

Career Possibilities

What can I do with a Statistics major? The goal of this page is to give some pointers about where answer to this common question may be found. There are many sources of information, and we’ve only collected a few of them so far.

  • The American Statistical Association has a site with useful Career Resources for those with statistics backgrounds.
  • This is Statistics also provides information about jobs in statistics and has other helpful information.
  • A statistics degree also places you in a position to work in data science, which has its own set of job opportunities.

Opportunities

During the academic year and during the summer there are a limited number of research opportunities in the Colby statistics department. For more information on those opportunities, please speak with a professor. There are many other opportunities available, however! And the department may have money to help fund your travel! Email Professor Wieczorek to inquire.

Here is a partial list. If you know of others, we are happy to add them. Every year there are many specialty conferences, some of which may be of interest to undergraduate Statistics majors.

Conference

Summer Opportunities