This blog post requires a little recent background. Last week, I had the pleasure of meeting one of our lead researchers at the American Legacy Foundation. I’ll be honest, I expected to walk into the meeting tired and to leave even more tired. I expected it to be boring, facts I already knew (and have been staring at for three months now).
It was absolutely fascinating.
I was immediately enrapt with the conversation. I found myself scribbling notes and questions throughout her entire spiel and by the end I asked her three questions in a row before I realized I was the only one who had questions. But I didn’t care. Her work excited me, her love for the numbers and the data behind all of our work–the communications, the message of the organization–took me back to my love of math in high school. And I realized that my interests are remarkably compatible.
Currently I’m pursuing a dual-degree in marketing and public communications. I love them both and I’ve already learned far more than I’d ever dreamed I would, both in and out of class; on campus, on the Hill and at the American Legacy Foundation; on Facebook, Twitter and blogs like Mashable and TechCrunch. But this co-worker’s subject intrigued me. I began to see the connections between the numbers and the message, and I began to grasp how much of an incredible advantage I could have if I understood not only the creative and strategic planning, but also the work that comes before the planning ever really begins.
Over the weekend the subject fled my mind as I became distracted with a friends’ visit, a trip to New York City and the startling realization that I leave for Denmark in just slightly over two weeks. But today, the idea came rushing back with all new possibilities.
To complete my public communications major, I am required to fulfill not only the 39 credits required but also 65 liberal arts credits. Naturally, these don’t include any of my marketing courses and therefore I’ll have several semesters of 18 credits (but I have confidence I can perform admirably). The question is, what liberal arts courses do I want to take for the last nine that have remaining? Statistics once again leapt to my mind.
And now here I am, contemplating a minor in statistics which would require only one extra course and would most likely be taken during the summer. And then, in a stunning coincidence I ran across this New York Times headline this afternoon: “For Today’s Graduate, Just One Word: Statistics.”
Now I’m really thinking. The article is interesting. The quote that caught my eye:
I keep saying that the sexy job in the next 10 years will be statisticians,” said Hal Varian, chief economist at Google. “And I’m not kidding.
Read the rest of the article here. And I’d love your feedback! You can comment here, on my Facebook or even on Twitter. Do you think I should go for it?
