ASA at 175 - Building a Career in Statistics

By Ronald Wasserstein - March 73, 2014

Tomorrow, Saturday, March 15, I have the privilege of speaking to the participants, mostly masters degree students in statistics, in the Careers Day event hosted by the Orange County-Long Beach Chapter of the ASA. Here, in brief, is what I am going to tell them about careers in statistics.

It is a great time to be preparing to be a statistician. First of all, jobs for statisticians and other quantitatively trained people are readily available. (See, for example, this article in the February 2014 Amstat News. Keep Reading →

ASA at 175 - Selecting Leaders

By Ronald Wasserstein - March 71, 2014

Two related activities of great importance to the future of the ASA are in full speed this week.  On Friday, March 14, the ASA’s 2014 elections – for positions beginning in 2015 – will open.   At the same time, the ASA’s Committee on Nominations is working to select nominees for ASA president and vice president, for elections to take place next spring.

In the January 23 ASA at 175 blog, I wrote about the processes by which nominees for the ASA Board are selected and elected.  I noted that there are separate processes for choosing the candidates for various Board positions, but that every...

ASA at 175 - This Week in Advocacy

By Ronald Wasserstein - March 70, 2014

Serving as an advocate for the sound practice of statistics is one of the American Statistical Association’s core functions.  Two areas in which the ASA is actively addressing this week illustrate this broad and important role.

Last week we heard the House Committee on Oversight & Government Reform mark up a bill to make the American Community Survey (ACS) voluntary. As of late yesterday afternoon, the mark up has been postponed – if not cancelled – but the episode  demonstrates the need for vigilance.   The ACS is a fundamental source of statistical information for many decisions made by the government.  The impact on the...

ASA at 175 - Enhancing statistics instruction at the K-12 level

By Ronald Wasserstein - March 66, 2014

Thanks to a devoted group of scholar/educators, the American Statistical Association is actively involved in improving statistical education at the K-12 level, and this is a special focus during this 175^th anniversary year for the ASA.  In this month's Amstat News Column 175, Chris Franklin and Tim Jacobbe write about one of those activities, preparing teachers to teach statistics well.

Statistics historically has been taught at the secondary level by people trained in mathematics and mathematics education, often focusing on formulas, counting techniques, and probability calculations rather than the real-world problem solving, applications, reasoning, and interpretation that form the heart of statistics.

Most people...

ASA at 175 - Careers in Statistics

By Ronald Wasserstein - March 64, 2014

It is a great time to be a statistician!  Perhaps you are looking for resources about the wonderful career opportunities in statistics, either for yourself or to share with others.  There are an increasing number of places to turn to for such resources, and we’ll point you to several of them.

Motivating today’s blog is a new article (March 4, 2014) in the Careers section of Science magazine.  It highlights continued demand for jobs in traditional areas of statistics, but notes increasing demand for data scientists. The article describes data science as “a fusion of statistics, computer science, and analytics in which...