Day 42 of 1000

Kelly does not know what to say when people ask her what is her major.  The reply she gets when she tells them she is working on a Statistics degree is “What can you do with a degree in statistics?”  It is generally a longer discussion than is called for in a “What’s your name?  Where are you from?  What’s your major?” kind of discussion.  There are TONS of jobs available to Statistics majors, but even that is not the right answer in Kelly’s case.  Kelly wants to go on to graduate school.  She wanted a degree that would give her an advantage in graduate school that would also let her explore different application areas.

We talked to a number of professors who all said that Statistics is used everywhere and would be a wonderful option if she wanted to study History, Sociology, Biology, Engineering, Journalism, Education, Psychology, Political Science, Business Administration, or a staggeringly broad range of other fields.  Kelly is not sure yet what she wants to study at the graduate level, but she has certainly done the homework to find an undergraduate degree that will give her flexibility.

Christian is in the same boat, but has a narrower range of interests for his graduate degree.  He chose Applied Math because it provides a strong foundation to go on to graduate work in Math, Electrical Engineering, Physics, Computer Engineering, or some other similar field.  He will have to take stuff like Statics, Dynamics, Strengths of Materials, Circuits, Thermodynamics as elective courses or his applied area, but that is what he likes.

On top of all that, Forbes put an article on their website in January of 2011 that ranked statisticians number four and mathematicians number two in terms of future job prospects.  They ranked the jobs based on scores in five categories:  Work environment, physical demands, stress, median income, and hiring outlook.  I tell the kids to be gracious when a communications, education, or psychology major disses their degree.