Someone writes,
I am currently looking at different grad school stats programs. I have a BA in Psychology (U. Southern California), but I am really interested in stats. I loved my stats classes in college but I was a bit of a naive wallflower back then and did not think to change course and pursue stats more, even though it was the favorite part of my degree. After I graduated, I worked as a research assistant where my PI quickly learned that I was happiest talking about and running the stats for her various projects. I worked with her for close to two years, then moved and now I’m a public school science teacher.
I know I have a passion for the subject, my problem is that whenever I look at the requirements for stats grad programs, I see that I am severely lacking in the math requirements. In your opinion, am I wasting my time looking at these programs when all I have is a Psych degree and a passion to learn more? Would it even be possible for an admissions board to look past my lack of math classes in college, taking into account my research experience, and possibly admit me on the condition that I complete the prerequisites? What course of action do you think would be best for my situation?
My reply:
1. I want to be encouraging, because I think that the field of statistics should have more people who want to do statistics, as opposed to people who studied math and aren’t really sure what to do next.
2. I expect you should be able to get into a good program, if they can be convinced that you can learn the math that’s necessary. I think a lot of places take GRE scores pretty seriously, so if your GRE’s aren’t so great, you might need to take some math and some probability theory to make the case that you can do it. The research experience should help. I also think that being able to program computers is as important as being able to do math, but most stat programs probably don’t agree with me there.
3. Another approach is to get a PhD in an applied field such as psychology or education or political science and focus on statistics (i.e., “methods”). The trick here is to go to a place where you can work with someone who’s doing good interdisciplinary work so that you don’t end up just doing out-of-date statistics. That’s true in a regular statistics department also. Lots of really PhD theses get done (actually, I’ve advised some of these myself, but I’m trying to improve).
4. Perhaps someone will comment with better advice?
Have you considered a quantitative psychology program? (Then the statisticians will think you are a psychologist, and the psychologists will think you are a statistician.)
The advice really has to depend on whether he enjoys math stats or applied states.
I am in a heavily (almost entirely) quantitative political science PhD program (UC Davis) and really enjoy the applied stats.
I was in a similar position at the beginning of my Psych PhD. I had never taken a stats class before, (and hadn't had much math; I was a music student) but on the first day of my first stats class, I was hooked :) My first thought was, "You can do that with MATH? That is so cool!" So, I continued on with my Psych PhD, but also a masters in statistics. This enables me to learn and interact more with stats faculty, while still being in an applied field.
Also, as Jeremy above noted, you can do quant psych. That may not be what you want, because you have to find a person who applies statistics in the way you want.
There are many fun applications of statistics in psychology, and if you find the right adviser, you can have a blast. If you contact me, I can give tell you more about my experience, and maybe some names.
I've heard it said that psych is underproducing PhD students, which usually makes for good job prospects. Can that be said of most "fair to middling" stats programs?
I got my PhD in psychometrics, and now work as data analyst/statistician.
I don't have a huge math background (2 semesters of Calculus, 25 years ago) but have picked up some here and there (most importantly, matrix algebra), and a bunch of statistics classes in the Psychology department
I think that, if you mostly want to analyze data, you can do it without any huge amount of formal math classes, as long as you have what might be called a quantitative brain. The math classes are most important when devising new methods, or proving theorems.
I find I can learn most of what I need with the math I have.
I am someone like Elissa, having encountered statistics through a very circuitous route (theoretical linguistics, and Japanese before that), and keep trying to learn more on my own (it's too late for me to start a PhD again). I started off with even less background in stats than Elissa.
In retrospect, I feel that my time would have been better spent if I had done a master's degree in statistics from a real stats department (as opposed to trying to decode, say, Casella and Berger), before doing my PhD in the main area I was interested in applying stats in.
I don't think that the core math needed is that hard if all you just want to do is be functional (as opposed to making ground-breaking theoretical advances). Worst case, Elissa would have to take a few undergrad courses first. So I would suggest doing an MS in statistics, and then proceeding to a PhD in Psychology, with a focus on "Methods" (or do both simultaneously).
That said, I don't actually know how well psychology stats courses are taught. I have a low opinion in general of non-statisticans teaching stats (paradoxically, that's what I sometimes have to do, teach stats even though I am not a statistican ;-). This low opinion is based on the routine abuse of statistics I see in my own area (psycholinguistics), even when psychologists are involved — I keep asking myself who taught these guys all this stuff. This impression is bolstered by the fact that in my graduate program in linguistics I soon found out that, with some exceptions, math courses are best taught by mathematicians or recovering mathematicians, and the same goes for computer-science courses (they should be taught by computer scientists, I mean, not mathematicians).
I am someone like Elissa, having encountered statistics through a very circuitous route (theoretical linguistics, and Japanese before that), and keep trying to learn more on my own (it's too late for me to start a PhD again). I started off with even less background in stats than Elissa.
In retrospect, I feel that my time would have been better spent if I had done a master's degree in statistics from a real stats department (as opposed to trying to decode, say, Casella and Berger), before doing my PhD in the main area I was interested in applying stats in.
I don't think that the core math needed is that hard if all you just want to do is be functional (as opposed to making ground-breaking theoretical advances). Worst case, Elissa would have to take a few undergrad courses first. So I would suggest doing an MS in statistics, and then proceeding to a PhD in Psychology, with a focus on "Methods" (or do both simultaneously).
That said, I don't actually know how well psychology stats courses are taught. I have a low opinion in general of non-statisticans teaching stats (paradoxically, that's what I sometimes have to do, teach stats even though I am not a statistican ;-). This low opinion is based on the routine abuse of statistics I see in my own area (psycholinguistics), even when psychologists are involved — I keep asking myself who taught these guys all this stuff. This impression is bolstered by the fact that in my graduate program in linguistics I soon found out that, with some exceptions, math courses are best taught by mathematicians or recovering mathematicians, and the same goes for computer-science courses (they should be taught by computer scientists, I mean, not mathematicians).
Southern CT State University offers an MS in RSM (Research, Statistics and Measurement) program. It does not require a GRE. The program has a psych/education focus. I am currently enrolled in this program.
I am in my second semester of a Masters program in Statistics. Like Elissa, my undergrad background was in the social sciences (sociology in my case). After working in various fields, I realized that I had a passion for statistics and wanted to make a career out of it. Being in my late 30s, I didn't have time for a new undergrad degree plus my masters – so I looked around for a way to make it work. I took two higher level online math classes and got high A's in both, wrote a great application letter explaining the value of my "maturity and experience" – and got accepted to my top two choices of Stat departments.
I think the recent grades from higher level undergrad math classes was important – make sure you take them from an accredited school, not just some random online site. The University of Illinois offers an excellent online math department, as does the University of Colorado.
One final and important note though – my lack of undergrad math background has been very apparent in my graduate statistics classes. Although my grades are fine, I am often having to work twice as hard as my classmates who have the hard math undergrad degrees. I usually buy the undergrad and the grad textbook for every class. But – it is absolutely worth it as statistics is such an exciting field once you speak the language!
Good luck.
Hello everyone, thank you so much for your encouragement and advice. And thank you, Andrew, for posting my question so that others could comment. It has been a great help. I am indeed looking to beef up my math background with some classes this spring and summer. I had not previously thought of online classes – this is something I may look into also.
Thanks again, everyone!
I would recommend Ph.D. program in psychometrics and quantitative psychology at Fordham University in New York (http://www.fordham.edu/academics/programs_at_fordham_/psychology/psychometrics/).
As some others have suggested, I highly encourage you to consider statistics programs nestled within psychology, and to that I might add programs housed within education. For example, our program at Arizona State (http://research.ed.asu.edu/main.html) is housed in educational psychology, but we as a faculty consider ourselves to be methodologists, not educational psychologists. Feel free to contact me for more information on our program or others housed in education.