BA in Statistical Practice

To declare a statistics major, please email the School of Statistics academic advisor at [email protected] for more information.

Statistics provides navigation essential for controlling the course of scientific and societal advances. It is the science of learning from data, measuring, controlling, and communicating uncertainty.

Compared to the BS degree, the BA program has fewer required mathematics courses and more applied statistics courses, or courses in a supporting quantitative area. The BA in statistical practice is an excellent choice for those students who are most interested in joining the workforce after completing their degree, or for those who would like to learn about statistics, but don’t enjoy the higher level math required in the BS degree. 

The B.A. in Statistical Practice offers two distinct tracks: Applied Statistics and Data Science. Each track allows students to focus on specific areas of interest while gaining comprehensive training in statistical and data science methods.

Tracks
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Tracks

Applied Statistics Sub-Plan

To declare a statistics major, please email the School of Statistics academic advisor at [email protected] for more information.

Statistics provides navigation essential for controlling the course of scientific and societal advances. It is the science of learning from data, measuring, controlling, and communicating uncertainty.

Compared to the BS degree, the BA in Statistical Practice - Applied Statistics subplan program has fewer required mathematics courses and more applied statistics courses, or courses in a supporting quantitative area. The BA in Statistical Practice - Applied Statistics subplan is an excellent choice for those students who are most interested in joining the workforce after completing their degree, or for those who would like to learn about statistics, but don’t enjoy the higher level math required in the BS degree. The BA in Statistical Practice - Applied Statistics subplan is comprised of a series of required STAT courses, Calculus I and II, an intro CSCI course, and electives.

The BA in Statistical Practice - Applied Statistics subplan is intended for students who want to use their education as certification for work requiring statistical skills or as a basis for further education in another area like medicine, psychology, law, or others. Students who complete this program using statistics electives will have applied statistics training equivalent to most master's programs in statistics.

Data Science Sub-Plan

To declare a statistics major, please email the School of Statistics academic advisor at [email protected] for more information.

This track focuses on data management, cleaning, and statistical analysis. It includes more computer science courses and options for specialization in various domains, preparing students for roles in data-intensive industries.

The BA in Statistical Practice - Data Science subplan involves being able to extract and clean (large volumes of) data from a variety of sources, analyze that data statistically, and help put the data analysis results in context for decision-making. Accordingly, the Data Science subplan requires fewer statistics electives than either the Applied Statistics Subplan or the Statistics BS but more computer science classes (needed for data wrangling) and more classes outside of Statistics to encourage and allow both big-picture thinking about data and domain specialization. Indeed, since Data Science involves domain specialization, this subplan includes a variety of "emphasis" options, which range from engineering to the social sciences, so students can choose to focus on building tools for automation or on specific domains of societal interest that are built on or benefit from careful data analysis.