Math vs. Stats: A Fight to the…Bank?

(Posted by Samantha Tyner)

Hi there! This is my first time writing a blog
post, so I hope you enjoy it! My name is
Samantha Tyner, and I’m a first year grad
student in Statistics at Iowa State University. I
graduated from Augustana College in Rock
Island, IL in May 2012, with a BA (yes, a BA, not
a BS) in Mathmatics, Economics, and French. I
was invited to write for this blog by a former
professor of mine from Augustana, Dr. Brian Katz
(who is also a contributor).
When he first suggested that I write for this
math grad student blog, I must admit I was a
little skeptical. After all, I’m not really a
mathematician anymore! But, after giving it
some serious thought, I decided that maybe I
could contribute some insights into the world of
statistics to this blog that you might (and will
hopefully) find interesting in the least and
fascinating or possibly thrilling at best! (Thanks,
BK!)
The first topic I decided to investigate is the
difference between how the world perceives
mathematicians and how the world perceives
statisticians. Having been a little bit of both, I
can tell you that the perceptions are in fact quite
different. The biggest thing I noticed when I
transitioned from being a mathematician to being
a statistician was that the questions people were
asking me about my life goals changed
significantly.
In my past life as a mathematician, when I told
friends, family, and my dental hygienist what I
was studying in school, I instantly got the typical
variation of, “Math? Blech! I was never any good
at math. I don’t know how you manage,” to
which I responded with grace and poise, and not
what I was thinking in my head, which was
usually something along the lines of, “Why, how
convenient! I find your chosen occupation/area
of study equally distasteful!” (I never actually
said that, of course, and I only really thought it
on a few occasions. I mean, they really were
trying to be nice, despite the fact that they had
just managed to make my lifelong passion sound
about as appetizing as an anchovy and liverwurst
sandwich.) Regardless, the second question was
always, “Oh, what are you going to do with
that?” This question was apparently rhetorical,
because the asker would always answer it
themselves with, “teach?” This is, unfortunately,
the curse of the mathematician, and especially
of the female mathematician, because people
generally only see “math problems” in math
class, and once they leave school, they fail to
see that math is all around them! (That’s
another discussion though!) I would always
answer this question with, “No, I don’t want to
teach…” and then I’d change the subject because
I wasn’t sure how to even begin to answer that
question, and I still really don’t. (Again, that’s
another discussion for another time.)
But, now that I’m a statistician, (see how I
changed the subject yet again?) the first
reaction to the slightest mention of math
(*horrified gasp*) is still generally the same. The
second question, however, has changed
dramatically. If the asker knows anything about
statistics at all (the bare minimum here being a
screening of the film Along Came Polly on TBS
one lazy Saturday afternoon), the second thing
out of their mouth after “Ew! Math!” is usually,
“So what are you going to do? Something that’ll
make you a whole lotta money, I bet!” And
again, the question is almost always rhetorical.
So, apparently now that I’m a statistician, I must
be in it for the money. (Again, I know they were
trying to be nice, but they kind of made me
sound a little bit like the girl in that one Kanye
song.) If the asker has absolutely no prior
knowledge about statistics, then they usually
reply with just a quizzical look on their face, and
then they change the subject. I must admit,
however, that the world at large doesn’t seem to
have boxed statisticians in quite as tightly as
they have mathematicians. For instance, there
are more women earning PhDs in statistics than
in mathematics (see this article , p. 11), which
suggests to me that, in general and for some
unknown reason, statistics is a more open and
diverse field. (Although women are still
definitively in the minority!) But, I think the
biggest difference is that the world embraces
statistics (many times unknowingly) for use in
everyday life. E.g. What’s the chance it will rain
today? What was Felix Hernandez’s ERA last
season? How accurate are the tests for STDs?
What are the chances my child will be born with
a genetic disorder? Etc. So, at least people have
more of an innate sense of what statistics is and
does compared to mathematics. But why do
people almost always think of green when
thinking of statistics? Do they think we carry
more value? (Surely not.) Is it because they
think we deserve it for doing the drudgework of
society? (Maybe.) Or, do they think the money
is some sort of bribe to keep us from attacking
all the muggles with our magical predictive
powers, albeit with a=0.05? (Hey, even Harry got
it wrong sometimes, and he defeated the Dark
Lord!)
Cheesy Harry Potter jokes aside, no matter what
my friends, family, or dental hygienist think about
my profession and the reasons why I chose it,
I’m glad to be a statistician, and I’m glad to have
been a mathematician! I hope that you found
this post entertaining, and that you come back
for more, when I think of it! Thanks for reading!

blogs.ams.org/mathgradblog/2013/01/24/mathvsstats/#sthash.d5vWDKmF.hlj927ut.dpbs

Lol. True

Madmathecian:
Lol. True

yes boss.