Special: Eugenia Skirta
Statistical Education and Consulting Center and its Role in Enhancing the Quality of Undergraduate Student Research in Sciences
Eugenia Skirta
Department of Mathematics,ÌýEast Stroudsburg University
Date and time:Ìý
Wednesday, March 19, 2014 - 2:00pm
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ECCR 257
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It is important for all scientists and engineers to have a practical understanding of statistics. Computer scientists and engineers rely on this understanding, whether their specialty is research, communications, software development, security, or any other part of computing. A good understanding of statistics is essential to dealing with the theories and processes as a part of their everyday work, especially when working with massive data sets. The Wall Street Journal's report onÌýÌý³ó²¹²õÌýMathematician,StatisticianÌý²¹²Ô»åÌýActuaryÌý(all in the top ten!). Statistics is central to the current explosion of activity relating to business analytics and "big data": AÌý2011 studyÌýby international business consultants McKinsey Global reports thatÌý"By 2018, the United States alone could face a shortage of 140,000 to 190,000 people with deep analytical skills". Career choices of our recent alumni illustrate some of the wide range of options for our graduates.
Initially, a newly created ESU Statistical Education and Consulting Center’s (SECC, 2005) goal was to provide statistical advice and research assistance to academic staff and graduate students along with high quality statistical input for area companies with short and long term projects. In this consulting role, the Center provided state and local companies with methodologies, solutions, and practical implementations to produce tangible results through analytics. A year later we expanded and integrated our undergraduate research and educational activities, connecting Statistics to the fields of Biology, Mathematical Finance, Information Sciences, Economics, Business, Education, and Psychology. We promoted the interaction among undergraduate students, graduate students, and faculty members; we brought new energy and focus into our statistics curriculum. The latter will be discussed in more detail covering the scope of student projects, presentations at various local, national, and international conferences, and their participation in environmental, biological, and computer science programs, to name a few. Research experience encountered by undergraduate students broaden their educational experiences and future career opportunities. We attract talented students interested in quantitative sciences to the fields of probability and statistical modeling, and help them deepen their knowledge of SAS, IBM SPSS, Matlab, and Excel, the software packages incorporated into our undergraduate statistical courses. Every semester the statistical consultants spend a large number of hours within the framework of SECC helping our students to excel in statistics and science courses, become self-motivated, more critical, and more creative in their approach to the material. Conceptual understanding develops students’ ability to make decisions and think critically as well as provides students with a strong-problem solving mindset that helps them succeed in their future professional activities.