Majoring in Statistics: A Big Mistake?

Summary

The speaker reflects on what he would change if he could repeat his statistics degree. His main message is to plan earlier, gain career experience while studying, and build practical skills beyond coursework.

Main lessons

1. Choose a direction earlier He changed majors several times, starting in nursing, moving through management information systems (MIS), and eventually becoming interested in mathematics and statistics. In his view, spending his first year and a half on unrelated courses cost him time and money and left him behind in his eventual studies. Looking back, he would have chosen statistics, data science, or computer science from the beginning.

2. Attend career fairs and pursue internships early He did not begin applying for jobs until his third year and wishes he had started in his second. Career fairs can help students learn what employers expect, practice speaking with interviewers, and identify gaps in their résumés.

He recommends attending as many fairs as possible and applying for internships before graduation. He believes another internship could have made his own job search easier, and says this advice applies to college students in any field.

1. Build independent projects Class projects are often guided and may use prepared, cleaned datasets, so they do not always demonstrate how well a student can work independently. He recommends practicing the process yourself:

   • Find your own dataset.
   • Decide how to analyze it.
   • Draw your own conclusions.
   • Share the work on GitHub so it can be included on your résumé.

Employers may value projects that show initiative and independent problem-solving.

1. Learn what different statistics paths involve Although he knew he liked statistics, he did not initially understand which specialty suited him. He began in actuarial science but later moved toward applied statistics. In hindsight, he would have considered applied or computational statistics, particularly with a computer science focus.

Understanding a specialization earlier could have helped him choose courses and plan for the kinds of jobs he wanted.

The speaker also says that creating his YouTube channel helped him organize his thoughts and reflect on his degree.

Speaker

Chris — the video’s narrator and creator, and the only speaker featured in the subtitles.