Anybody know anything about statistics?

[Franzl]

So yeah....I graduated from Gymnasium this year, as some of you may have found out in the thread I posted back then, and I've started to think about what to do in the future.

Germany, unfortunately, still has mandatory military service....which I'm doing in the form of "civil service", meaning I'll be tending to the physically disabled for 6 months.....not exactly what I want to do (I know, it sounds mean.....but I really don't enjoy being around them. I understand it's not their fault and someone has to do it...). But anyway, after that, meaning early next year, I need to finally decide what to do.

I've not had any real ideas up till now....at least not serious ones. I thought I'd study law....but I've come to think that was more or less just my automatic response whenever anyone asked, and it wasn't really a sincere choice.....I don't really think that's what I should do.

So for a few weeks now, I've been looking at alternatives. Throughout Gymnasium, I was best in subjects like English, French and Politics, although I've never been bad at math. Indeed, I've never been under 10/15 (B-) at any time, earning 15/15 (A+) in 12th grade when statistics was the topic of that semester.

So I've been considering studying statistics actually. It's offered at 4 German universities....although I'm quite certain if I did it (same goes for law btw), I would want to study at the LMU in Munich.

My question: Does anyone here have any experience with studying mathematics, or preferably statistics outright. I'm having trouble figuring out whether I'd be able to manage that degree. All I can say is that I've always enjoyed mathematics....and have always been "rather good", although not a genius by any definition. Can anyone say, from their experience, whether this is something that a "non-genius" can do?

I'd be interested in hearing anything you have to say about it. The potential jobs one can do with a degree in statistics are quite impressive....not only that there's a very high probability of finding a job, but also the rather good pay.

What do you think?

[Associate Justice PiT]

     I took a Statistics class last semester & found it to be really, really easy. It might be different if you are planning to get a degree in the field, though.

[Franzl]

     I took a Statistics class last semester & found it to be really, really easy. It might be different if you are planning to get a degree in the field, though.

Yeah I agree about that. School statistics were certainly not complicated. Although every source I've heard from up till now says university statistics is not comparable at all

[phk]

Go to the Dept's website and post the class descriptions from the course catalogue.

[Franzl]

Go to the Dept's website and post the class descriptions from the course catalogue.

Do you understand German? Not very easy for me to translate....but I'll post the link.

http://www.stat.uni-muenchen.de/studium/vorlesungsverzeichnis/uebersicht_bachelor.html

Not easy to copy and paste the content here.

[Associate Justice PiT]

     I took a Statistics class last semester & found it to be really, really easy. It might be different if you are planning to get a degree in the field, though.

Yeah I agree about that. School statistics were certainly not complicated. Although every source I've heard from up till now says university statistics is not comparable at all

     Well my class was roughly equivalent to a general interest Statistics course. I imagine it would have been different if I had taken something that was on the Statistics major track.

[RIP Robert H Bork]

My question: Does anyone here have any experience with studying mathematics, or preferably statistics outright. I'm having trouble figuring out whether I'd be able to manage that degree. All I can say is that I've always enjoyed mathematics....and have always been "rather good", although not a genius by any definition. Can anyone say, from their experience, whether this is something that a "non-genius" can do?

I'm knowledgeable in math, but not statistics, sorry.

[Gustaf]

I've done quite a bit of statistics as part of my economics degree. As long as you know your way around numbers it shouldn't be impossible.

[Lunar]

Started senior year of highschool wanting to be an Actuary,  switched my mind and wanted to be an Indonesianist, then at the end of 4.5 years of college I say screw that and became a hack.

Success story.

[phk]

Go to the Dept's website and post the class descriptions from the course catalogue.

Do you understand German? Not very easy for me to translate....but I'll post the link.

http://www.stat.uni-muenchen.de/studium/vorlesungsverzeichnis/uebersicht_bachelor.html

Not easy to copy and paste the content here.

If it is, what I think it is, you should be fine.

Descriptive Statistics, Basically Probability Theory, Applied Statistics (through SAS for example), Regression Analysis, Multivariate Statistics, Non-Parametric Statistics, Time Series Analysis.

I encountered a lot of this in my Econ/Math track.

[Хahar 🤔]

Started senior year of highschool wanting to be an Actuary,  switched my mind and wanted to be an Indonesianist, then at the end of 4.5 years of college I say screw that and became a hack.

Success story.

Why would you want to be an actuary? I'm confused now.

[Lunar]

Started senior year of highschool wanting to be an Actuary,  switched my mind and wanted to be an Indonesianist, then at the end of 4.5 years of college I say screw that and became a hack.

Success story.

Why would you want to be an actuary? I'm confused now.

In high school I was good at & liked math, and actuaries make a crap ton of money, which appealed to me at the time.

I got more embittered to math throughout junior & senior years though, with a Statistics AP teacher who didn't know any statistics and Calculus teacher who was kind of bitter.

Anyway, back to Franz

[Gustaf]

Started senior year of highschool wanting to be an Actuary,  switched my mind and wanted to be an Indonesianist, then at the end of 4.5 years of college I say screw that and became a hack.

Success story.

Why would you want to be an actuary? I'm confused now.

^^

Pics or it didn't happen.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Statistics make for pretty maps? That's what I know about statistics.

[John Dibble]

I know that 97% of them are made up on the spot...

[Gustaf]

Ok, to seriously adress your concerns, Franz, statistics is basically so mathematically advanced that you can't calculate anything anyway and you have to rely on computers.

So, although difficult it is actually so difficult that it ceases to be, if you know what I mean. If you have a good intuition for math it should be enough, but statistics is still usually quite a bit of hard work. It is, however, extremely useful in a lot of different fields. This is especially true since so few people know anything at all about statistics, so actually doing so gives you a clear advantage.

In modern economics it is essential of course.

[minionofmidas]

     I took a Statistics class last semester & found it to be really, really easy. It might be different if you are planning to get a degree in the field, though.

Yeah I agree about that. School statistics were certainly not complicated. Although every source I've heard from up till now says university statistics is not comparable at all

It gets quite complex. I've forgotten almost everything I learned, sadly.

[minionofmidas]

Go to the Dept's website and post the class descriptions from the course catalogue.

Do you understand German? Not very easy for me to translate....but I'll post the link.

http://www.stat.uni-muenchen.de/studium/vorlesungsverzeichnis/uebersicht_bachelor.html

Not easy to copy and paste the content here.

If it is, what I think it is, you should be fine.

Descriptive Statistics, Basically Probability Theory, Applied Statistics (through SAS for example), Regression Analysis, Multivariate Statistics, Non-Parametric Statistics, Time Series Analysis.

I encountered a lot of this in my Econ/Math track.

Yes, you would.

Wonder what a specialized statistics degree is used for? Probably just the same things a maths degree (not maths teaching degree) can be used for... go to work for some insurance company.

[ilikeverin]

I suggest linguistics!

[phk]

Go to the Dept's website and post the class descriptions from the course catalogue.

Do you understand German? Not very easy for me to translate....but I'll post the link.

http://www.stat.uni-muenchen.de/studium/vorlesungsverzeichnis/uebersicht_bachelor.html

Not easy to copy and paste the content here.

If it is, what I think it is, you should be fine.

Descriptive Statistics, Basically Probability Theory, Applied Statistics (through SAS for example), Regression Analysis, Multivariate Statistics, Non-Parametric Statistics, Time Series Analysis.

I encountered a lot of this in my Econ/Math track.

Yes, you would.

Wonder what a specialized statistics degree is used for? Probably just the same things a maths degree (not maths teaching degree) can be used for... go to work for some insurance company.

Actuary firm, insurance firm, financial services firm, marketing firm (a lot of marketing these days is just analyzing data about customers), biostatistics.

[Torie]

Statistics is of medium difficulty. It is not easy (particularly certain aspects of it), but none that I was exposed to was impossibly hard. It is a pity that only about 5% of the population has a clue about statistics and probabilities, which is one of the reasons they sometimes make silly or bad decisions, like not flying to Europe after 9-11.

How remunerative it is, is another question, since with powerful computers and excel and whatnot, in its application it has become more of a commodity. Can you imagine doing complex regression analyses manually, for example? My gosh, it can and did sometimes take days for statisticians to crank the stuff out.

[phk]

Statistics make for pretty maps? That's what I know about statistics.

Not exactly. That's more about matching and coloring in lines.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

Statistics isn't that hard, but companies would probably rather hire a H-1B.