The Seattle Times – Katherine Long
“In recent years, there’s been a big focus on computer science as a path to a top job after college. But the American Statistical Association would like students to know that statistics is also a hot field these days. Even though more students are earning statistics degrees than ever before, there aren’t enough statisticians being trained to meet the demand. There’s a vast volume of data available now to be analyzed, and statisticians are the ones who can make sense of it. “I think people are just recognizing the value of what statisticians do,” said Jessica Utts, the president-elect of the American Statistical Association and chair of the department of statistics at the University of California, Irvine. “You really need to know what you’re doing to be able to determine if a source of data is legitimate, how to ask the right questions, how to filter the data in a way to answer those questions.” The types of jobs available to statisticians have expanded, as well. Statistics was once a narrow field that prepped students to work as actuaries, or interpret the U.S. Census. “But now, the job sector has opened up so wide, almost anything you can think of uses statistics,” Utts said.”(more)