If you’ve ever wanted to know more about my Not So Standard Deviations co-host (and Johns Hopkins graduate) Hilary Parker, you can go check out the great profile of her on the American Statistical Association’s This Is Statistics web site.
What advice would you give to high school students thinking about majoring in statistics?
It’s such a great field! Not only is the industry booming, but more importantly, the disciplines of statistics teaches you to think analytically, which I find helpful for just about every problem I run into. It’s also a great field to be interested in as a generalist– rather than dedicating yourself to studying one subject, you are deeply learning a set of tools that you can apply to any subject that you find interesting. Just one glance at the topics covered on The Upshot or 538 can give you a sense of that. There’s politics, sports, health, history… the list goes on! It’s a field with endless possibility for growth and exploration, and as I mentioned above, the more I explore the more excited I get about it.