Statistics in the science of collecting, organizing and interpreting numerical data whether it's census numbers or rainfall totals. Statisticians use surveys and experiments to try and predict things like population growth or economic conditions. They work with government, business and industry to develop ways to test for quality of products or evaluate the results of a new program.
Representative Job Titles and Area of Specialization
- Actuary
- Agricultural Statistician
- Applied Statistician
- Biostatistician
- Computational Linguist
- Computational Statistician
- Computer Programmer/Analyst
- Demographer
- Econometrist
- Engineering Analyst
- Epidemiologist
- Management Information Science Specialist
- Marketing Researcher
- Mathematical Statistician
- Meteorological Statistician
- Operations Research Analyst
- Physical Science Statistician
- Professor/Lecturer/Instructor
- Psychometrist
- Quality Assurance/Quality Control Specialist
- Statistician
- Sports Statistician
- Statistical Consultant
- Statistical Software Engineer
- Theoretical Statistician
Nature of the Work
Statisticians plan and conduct surveys, questionnaires and experiments to collect information in an unbiased manner. They evaluate, organize and analyze the data and then present their conclusions and forecasts based on what they found.
Places of Employment
- Accounting firms
- Actuarial consulting firms
- Aerospace industry
- Banks
- Computer development companies
- Federal agencies including:
- Bureau of Economic Analysis
- Bureau of Justice Statistics
- Bureau of Labor Statistics
- Department of Commerce
- Department of Defense
- Department of the Interior
- Department of Health and Human Service
- Energy Information Administration
- Environmental Protection Agency
- National Bureau of Standards
- National Center for Education Statistics
- National Institutes of Health
- Insurance companies
- Manufacturing companies
- Medical research centers
- Public utilities
- State and county departments of public health
- Universities and colleges
Training
A bachelor's degree in statistics is the minimum qualification for an entry-level position.
Background in engineering or the physical sciences is desirable for some positions like quality control. If you are interested in medical research, some courses in life sciences and/or biostatistics are a good idea. And, courses in computer programming are highly recommended.
For further information and/or career counseling contact the UCR Career Center, (951) 827-3631.
Supplemental Material
The following documents may provide further ideas for exploration.
- Computer Science
- Economics
- Education
- Engineering
- Finance
- Logistics and Supply Chain
- Marketing
- Mathematics
- Physics
