The future of statistics looks bright. With data being created at an accelerated rate, data scientists will be needed to sort and interpret the huge volumes of data. There will be opportunities for data scientists in the near future that make it worth it to invest in statistical training. Google said that there will be many opportunities for statistically trained scientists in the near future.
I am still interested in learning new applied mathematics, especially statistics and R programming. These tools were not available to me when I was an undergrad at Rutgers University. I’ve been learning as much as I can in statistics and R, ever since I discovered R
One opportunity new to the statistics is the idea of big data. Online companies and the internet and social media like Facebook and Twitter are generating huge amounts of data. Dealing with this big data takes training in both computer science, statistics and marketing.
A good course of study would be a mathematics or statistics degree with classes in computer science and business.
I’ve been looking for some graduate classes to continue my interest in statistics and for professional development and the cost is very high. There are online classes at Udemy , Udacity and Coursea, but, as of now, they do not offer graduate credit. These online classes are interesting in that they are taught by some of the best professors in the world. I have found some graduate programs in the US, but the least expensive graduate classes are about $200.00 per credit.
This got me searching for tuition prices in the Philippines. The Philippines has some good graduate statistics programs at a very reasonable rate. The problem is, you have to move there and take the classes there as they don’t have online classes in statistics yet. The cost at Benguet State University is about $1500.00 per year, which is very affordable.
I found this document, The Academic Programs in Statistics in the Philippines by Lisa Grace S. Bersales, Ph.D., that lists all the statistics programs in the Philippines. I have contacted someone in that program and found that the applied statistics program uses SAS, excel and some R.
If and when we live in the Philippines, I just might enroll in the graduate applied statistics program.
