[转载] 统计可以等待,因为它代表着永恒

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统计可以等待,因为它代表着永恒 (Statistics is patient, because it is eternal)
---to those who are struggling for a job in the area of statistics
French physicist and philosopher Pierre Duhem once said, “mathematics is
patient because it is eternal”. Replace “math” with “statistics”, you
got my title, which can be translated into Chinese – “统计可以等待,因为它
代表着永恒”. I picked up this sentence as the title of this post because
it can serve as a topic sentence to organize what I have thought of
statistics as a career path: being eternal that requires patience.

That statistics is eternal can be illustrated by many things: your text
books might be still in its 1970s edition (compared to Computers Books of
2009 edition), or the methodology you use in your statistical analyses of
survival data is still based on Kaplan-Meier’s 1958 paper.

Yet, the outstanding feature of its eternality lies in its wide range of
experiences: starting from agricultural experimental designs, servicing the
needs of psychologists, picking up data thrown out by Yao Ming’s fans and
making sense out of the mess and uncertainty, or suggesting presidential
campaign strategies for Mr. Obama, statistics walks through various fields
- from humble experimental labs in your basement to the Oval Office in the
White House. Rich experiences carry wisdom; wisdom formalized in
mathematics means power. And the intellectual power is what the society
needs.

In the process of making itself useful and powerful , statistics obtains
its eternality; armed with the power of statistics, you’ve made yourself
useful to the society.

Now, the question is: the real moment you could feel your usefulness as a
statistician is when you receive an offer letter. And when that could
happen?

Well, that needs patience. Even ten years ago, when job markets were
booming and computer graduates were getting 4 or more offers before
graduation, graduates from statistics department were still struggling for
possible onsite interviews. To laugh the last, you might need some
suffering at the beginning.

But to be patient does not mean you simply sit there, like Jiang Ziya with a
straight fishing hook, waiting for fish to bite. You need to do something
and it is simple: to sharpen your knowledge and skills.

1) Review what you’ve learnt from schools. Ask the question: can I
describe the basic concepts to some one in plain English (or Chinese if you
want Beijing not Boston) who is not majored in statistics? In your resume
, you might have listed ten or more courses. What words could you find
of each of them when asked about the course? Can you present it as
interesting and useful? If not, go back to your text books, or better, go
to very old statistics books to read. Interviewers evaluate new graduates
based on knowledge and the way they present the knowledge, not the
experiences (they know you don’t have any).

2) Sharpen your technical skills. This concerns the use of statistical
software packages. Many people ask: what is the best software? The answer
is: depends on the area you are going to work – R/S-plus is popular among
professors ,SPSS for sociologists, MATLAB for marketing research, and SAS
for pharmaceutical industry. Define your goal first, then concentrate on
something specific.

3) Expand your technical horizon. For people who want to be a SAS
programmer as a life career, I strongly suggest you “invade” one or
several areas of computer sciences major (remember they have constantly
invading our area by grabbing SAS and get a job): relational database (SQL
Server or Oracle), Perl (regular expression). For one reason, SAS is
constantly picking up ideas from different areas, these two areas are
providing many new implemented ideas. For another, since many small
companies are beginning to implement SAS and database at the same time, to
have such a skill listed on your resume will certainly draw the attention
of the hiring manager who has a wider range of needs.

Well, I recorded the above thinking in my gratitude to all those comments I
. 1point 3 acresreceived for my other post about job market . Those comments created an
expression that sharing experiences and thoughts might be useful to some
people in this forum. And I apologize that I do not have time to reply to
each of the nice and friendly comments.

What I really want to say to the ongoing or would statisticians is this:
believe in yourself, have confidence in the value you would be providing to
the society – because statistics is eternal; at the same time, be patient
and let time handle the rest while preparing yourself to be more valuable to
the society.

sf~
这篇文章有王强读英语那什么的感觉么= =