The Committee of Presidents of Statistical Societies (COPSS) Presents Careers in Statistics

Our Increasingly Quantitative World

The world is becoming quantitative. More and more professions, from the everyday to the exotic, depend on data and numerical reasoning.

Data are not just numbers, but numbers that carry information about a specific setting and need to be interpreted in that setting. With this growth in the use of data comes a growing demand for the services of statisticians, who are experts in

Producing trustworthy data,
Analyzing data to make their meaning clear, and
Drawing practical conclusions from data.

Examples of Statistical Careers

Here are a few of the many settings in which statisticians contribute to our well-being.

Medicine

The search for improved medical treatments rests on careful experiments that compare promising new treatments with the current state of the art. Statisticians work with medical teams to design the experiments and to analyze the complex data they produce.

Environment

Studies of the environment require data on the abundance and location of plants and animals, on the spread of pollution form its sources, and on the possible effects of changes in human activities. The data are often incomplete or uncertain, but statisticians can help uncover their meaning.

Industry

The future of many industries and their employees depends on improvement in the quality of goods and services and in the efficiency with which they are produced and delivered. Improvement should be based on data rather than guesswork. Ever more companies are installing elaborate systems to collect and act on data in order to better serve their customers.

Government Surveys

How many people are unemployed this month? What do we export to China, and what do we import? Are rates of violent crime increasing or decreasing? Government wants data on issues like these to guide policy, and government statistical agencies provide them by surveys of households and businesses.

Market Research

Are consumer tastes in television programs changing? What are promising locations for a new retail outlet? Market researchers use both government data and their own surveys to answer questions like these. Statisticians design the elaborate surveys that gather data for both public and private use.

The Nature of Statistics

Statistics provides the reasoning and the methods for producing and understanding data. Statisticians are specialists, but statistics by its nature demands that they be generalists also.

Mathematics and Computers Are Involved ...

Statistics uses mathematics, but it is not abstract or isolated: statisticians work with people from other professional backgrounds to solve practical problems. Statistics uses modern computing to organize and analyze data, and statisticians command specialized tools, but the emphasis is on the data to be understood and the problem to be solved rather than on computing for its own sake.

... But Understanding the Data Is Crucial

Statisticians must know more than statistics. A statistician who works in medicine or in a manufacturing plant or in market research must learn enough medicine or engineering or marketing to understand the data in their setting. Statisticians need the ability to work with other people, to listen, and to communicate.

Are You a Future Statistician?

Do you like mathematics and computing?
Do you want to use your quantitative skills to solve practical problems?
Do you like to collaborate with others in team efforts?
Do you like the challenge of constantly learning new things and tackling new problems?

If so, you may be a future statistician. The demand is there. Consider joining the quantitative world.

More Fields For Career Statisticians

Earlier we mentioned Medicine, Industry, Government Surveys, and Market Research as settings in which statistical methods are often used. Here are some more examples of fields where statisticians are making important contributions. For some of these fields, links to separate information pages are provided.

Agriculture	Animal Health	Astronomy	Biostatistics
Census	Chemistry	Clinical Trials	Computer Science
Consulting	Ecology	Economics	Education
Engineering	Epidemiology	Finance	Forestry
Genetics	Geography	Gov't Regulation	History
Insurance	Law	Manufacturing	Marketing
National Defense	Pharmacology	Physics	Population Research
Psychology	Public Health	Quality Improvement	Reliability
Risk Assessment	Sociology	Space Science	Sports
Social Science	Statistical Computing	Surveys	Writing

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This brochure was sponsored by the American Statistical Association, the Institute of Mathematical Statistics, the Statistical Society of Canada, and the Eastern and Western North American Regions of the Biometric Society. It is available in printed form from American Statistical Association, 732 North Washington Street, Alexandria, VA 22314-1943, USA.