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A recent press release by the American Statistical Association or ASA claims that the number of statistics majors in the United States has grown by more than 300% since the 1990’s.
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| Photo: The State News |
This increase has been attributed by some people to the advent of data science as a career path, with many industries needing statisticians to analyze and make use of raw data.
“The world is, in general, becoming more data-centric,” ASA President David Morganstein said.
Morganstein, the 110th President of the ASA and a former University of Michigan graduate student, said students are drawn to statistics because it’s practical, hands-on and provides context and understanding.
“...the fact that we can process all of this petabytes of data… that’s brought the attention to government decision makers, as well as industry decision makers,” Morganstein said.
With statistics on the rise across the nation, it’s no surprise MSU’s Department of Statistics and Probability has also noticed stark growth.
“A few years ago, (in 2005), we had (15) students,” MSU Department of Statistics and Probability acting chairman Yiman Xiao said. “Right now, this semester, we have (79) students majoring in statistics — the enrollment in statistics has gone up tremendously.”
Xiao, a member of the department since 2000, said he believes statistics is popular because of its wide applicability.
“A lot of the industries are looking into statisticians more," statistics graduate student Robin Todd said. "They need statisticians to really understand the data, they can only do so much with the programming. I’m not too surprised. I feel like it’s going to become more incorporated in other fields of study.”
Not only is the field of statistics expanding at a breakneck pace, it has also become the most equally represented STEM field in terms of gender. According to another ASA release, women comprise 40% of math and statistics graduates, compared to around 20% in most other STEM fields.
“I think it’s a very good thing,” Xiao said. “(Statistics is attracting to students because) to some extent, it has an abstract aspect, it has an art aspect, it has applications...”
“I think stereotypically, women go more towards humanities, and I think statistics has more of a reach towards those fields,” Todd said. “I feel you can apply it to the fields that generally attract women in, maybe there’s more overlap.”
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Source: The State News
