For the last year to year and a half, there has been discussion within the math department as to whether or not to separate statistics into its own program. The alternative to a new program is revising requirements in the math department. Neither change can go into full effect until next fall.
Associate Professor of Statistics Rick Ott said there are pros and cons to the potential separation. One of the pros he listed was the ability to net students who would potentially be drawn to Colorado Mesa University because of the separate stat program versus a stat degree under a math program.
According to Ott, some may be drawn to stats because of the kinds of jobs available with a stats degree but they are not particularly good at math.
“Statistics requires a heck of a lot of mathematics,” Ott said. “You might get a few people like ‘well I heard stats is good but I’m not mathematical.’ Well it’s still not for you. It’s applied math.”
A con of separating is the need to go through a program review, which costs money and takes time. Additionally, there’s potential pressure that could come from the state regarding student numbers.
A con for separation that students may want to consider involves graduate school.
“If you’re going to go to grad school, it usually looks better if you come from a math program. When you come from a math program, you have a very hard, rigorous math background,” Ott said. “If you’re a stat program by yourself, some programs might not be as rigorous in math and students will sometimes struggle for the first year when they get into graduate school.”
Rather than separation, another idea being discussed is revising the requirements.
“As a math degree we have a certain core. And there’s a few upper-level courses that, they’re not bad for a stat major, learn as much as you can, and for graduate school they might be great, but there’s other courses that we see as a little more beneficial to replace those,” Ott said.
According to Ott, the math department has been discussing making the core a little more minimized so a stat focus can have the desired courses.
“You still gotta like math. We’re just not going to have you take some very abstract theoretical math courses that are still wonderful, good courses,” Ott said. “But to get a stat degree we want to bring in and acquire a few more appropriate courses for a statistician.”
Students would still be able to take higher level theoretical math courses as electives. Ott said doing so could make stats majors more well rounded as statisticians.
“I think we’re leaning towards keeping it under mathematics and to just go ahead and revise that our students don’t have to take all the same upper level requirements,” Ott said. “They just become electives.”
Currently there is not a lot of choice for which classes to take and Ott thinks the students are going to like that kind of change.
If changes get decided on, paperwork is submitted in time and review of the changes leads to approval, they may be seen as early as the spring semester. However, such changes would not be listed in a catalogue, so the real effect would be next fall.
