Statistics as an Interdisciplinary Science

摘要

What do statisticians do? That's a question raised by a biostatistics student in the letter appearing on Page 31. How does a statistics or biostatistics student decide what to emphasize in graduate school? When should a student pursue a PhD? And when is a master's degree sufficient? An issue touched on briefly is statistics as an interdisciplinary science. I think there is general agreement that statistics is interdisciplinary. And among statisticians, there is probably agreement that (almost) all other scientific disciplines need statistics (and statisticians). But, what are we doing to promote this concept? In academics, there is certainly a push to make statistics a required course for many undergraduate majors.