All Statistics

Statistics have a reputation for being boring, and some introductory modules are indeed snooze-inducing. Once you get past the basics, though, the subject quickly becomes fascinating.​By the time you’ve earned your bachelor’s degree in this field, you’ll be equipped with a powerful set of tools that can be applied in nearly any context: research, engineering, marketing, finance, economics, healthcare, and many aspects of government. Whatever your interests may be, statistics is an excellent choice of major as long as you have some mathematical ability.​Statistics, of course, is the science of gathering, analyzing, and interpreting data. What this really means is that statistics allow us to gain a truthful picture of some aspects of the world using numbers. While this, again, makes it sound abstract and tedious, it lets us give definitive answers to practical questions like:​What is the most economical way for a store to reduce shoplifting?Why do consumers choose product X over product Y?How much server bandwidth does a website need to keep running smoothly?Is it better for a transportation company to have three large warehouses or five smaller ones?​Something that comes as a surprise to many people is that the answers often aren’t simply numbers. Suppose you were told, for example, that most traffic accidents occur within five miles of the home. Would it be correct to conclude that people drive more recklessly in their own neighborhoods, or that most car trips are short ones? The ability to ask probing questions and see issues from multiple angles are characteristic of professional statisticians.​As you would expect, the majority of statistics coursework consists of various types of math, especially the kind that deals with probability. In modern times, data science and machine learning also play a major role and expand your employment options considerably.