Since it’s now registration season, I feel obliged to make a recommendation for all non-STEM majors for this upcoming spring semester. Take a course in statistics. And while some are certainly recoiling at the thought of taking yet another math course, I think statistics should be thought of in a different light. Unlike some higher level math courses, statistics always has a ‘real world application’, which alone should make it an instant sell when compared to a course like Calculus 3. Not to say that there aren’t real world applications for the content covered in Calculus 3, but that for the average student, an introductory statistics course will have more useful information overall.
So why statistics? I personally think that even a rudimentary statistics knowledge makes you far less susceptible to ‘statistics’ that get reported on the news. Another benefit is that you get the ability to ‘sniff test’ academics’ statistical processes and determine for yourself if what they did in a particular study was the right call or if their methods are appropriate for the data and sample size that they had.
However, I think the best benefit that taking a statistics class has to offer is that it will help you train your intuition to look for interesting problems to investigate. It helps you train that part of your brain associated with pattern matching, and regardless of your field, being able to recognize patterns in data will make you invaluable to any employer.
So what class should you take? It really depends on your math background and what exactly you want to learn. It’s not required that you take a high level statistics course, quite the contrary. Take whatever you think you would most excel at.
If you want the bread and butter of statistics, either STAT 140 or STAT 240 would suffice. If you’re not particularly strong at math, STAT 140 would likely be better. If you just want to be able to understand results in a statistics paper, PSY 201 would be more than adequate.
However, if you’d like to apply statistics using programming, taking DATA 151 would also not be a bad option. Out of most of the courses in the data science major, DATA 151 likely does the most in preparing you for doing real world statistics. It also serves as a way to sharpen your programming ability if that’s something you want to have as a skill.
So try to keep statistics in the back of your mind this registration season, and ask your academic advisor if you can fit it into your schedule. Statistics is easily the most practical of the math disciplines, which is a skill that will never not be marketable.
You can also view this article here.