Are internships essential for Stats PhD students?

[Bayesian1701]

I will be starting my first year of a Statistics PhD program this fall.  I am living with my parents and we had a discussion the other day what I will do in the summers during my Ph.D. program.  My plan was to send out internship applications for internships I want,  but my parents are encouraging me to apply for internships I don't want because they think I need the experience.  I don't have any relevant non-academic work experience, all I did in college was tutor, do research, and last summer I had a job with student housing.   I am going straight into graduate school, so I haven't had a ”real” job.  My dad is an engineer and he thinks I should be getting internships instead of TA/RAing (or just working on research in general) in the summers. 

I am heavily leaning towards a career in academia,  but if I work in industry, I would probably want to work in survey methodology or maybe data journalism (which I know would be a weird thing to do with a Ph.D. in stats).  I looked into internships for this summer (to get a few for what's out there) and it seemed like I would not have many options as a first year for internships that would match up with my passions and career goals.  I don't want to do a biostatistics or a tech big data internship (which seemed like the majority of the internships I found) because that's not what I want to do with my life.  Also,  I could probably get an internship at my dad’s work but he is an engineer and it would probably be analytics on part failure or inventory control which I definitely don't want to do.

I know it will be a few months before I apply for internships but I will probably need (right?) to start looking for one in the fall if I want one after my first year.  Should I even apply for internships for things I am not interested in for the summer after my first year (and beyond) or focus on research and teaching instead?  I will likely not need the extra money an internship might bring. 

Part of me wants to invest my summers in things that will help me get a good postdoc and hopefully later a tenure-track position because that's what I want, then possibly help my backup plan.  On top of this, if I get an internship, it will have to be formally approved by my department and the graduate school due to a condition in my funding package restricting outside employment.  I think they would probably approve it since technically summer funding is separate from the academic year.   I want to do internships, but I want to know if I should consider internships where I am not interested in the work just so I have more ”real” work experience (not teaching or research).   I will seek advice outside of gradcafe, but I wanted more perspectives.  

 

[Stat Assistant Professor]

Most of the students at my institution who go into industry only do one internship the summer before they intend to graduate (and this internship was the ONLY non-academic work experience many of them had). The summers before that, they either traveled and/or did research. I think that if you are a PhD student in Statistics, the most recent internship you have is the most essential one, because companies will typically make job offers for their summer interns for the following year based on their performance. Other students also do one internship but find that they prefer the academic lifestyle, so they go on to do postdocs instead (or in some cases, they get a TT position if they have several strong publications).

I recommend you spend your first few summers preparing for qualifying exams and trying to get research done. This will give you more perspective on what you really want and also give you more time to get work done (as an academic, I can say that the summer truly is the best time to get work done). Then if you are still undecided, you can do an internship the summer before you plan to graduate so you can compare and contrast.

* ETA: An exception might be if you really want to work in a research division of a major company (like Microsoft Research or IBM Research). Then having several summers of industry research internships would be helpful. But otherwise, I haven't seen that it is necessary to have more than one to get a good job with a Statistics PhD.

Edited June 8, 2018 by Applied Math to Stat

[bayessays]

Most good internships are for more advanced students so you probably won't have to worry about this right away. I would recommend trying one out. I mean this in the least condescending way possible, but you don't really know what life is like as a statistician in academia or industry until you experience it, so I'd recommend doing at least one internship to see what it's really like. Tech internships are so varied, and often require specialized skills (especially survey methods) and you might love it. You might also like making $9k per month.

[Bayesian1701]

I am not against going internships, but I suspected it would be a better idea to do a couple and not every summer.  I want to take the first summer and work on preparing for measure theoretic probablity and quals and prepping for independent teaching my second year.  It’s good to know that I don’t have to worry about finding something my first year, but I will probably put in a few applications anyway. 

[BayesianLove]

On 6/8/2018 at 11:24 AM, Applied Math to Stat said:

* ETA: An exception might be if you really want to work in a research division of a major company (like Microsoft Research or IBM Research). Then having several summers of industry research internships would be helpful. But otherwise, I haven't seen that it is necessary to have more than one to get a good job with a Statistics PhD.

Does all this also apply for a job in a national lab?

[Stat Assistant Professor]

6 hours ago, BayesianLove said:

Does all this also apply for a job in a national lab?

I'm not really sure. I haven't seen any alumni of my department go to work at a government research lab... I imagine if you have several summers of interning in a research division of a national lab or a major corporation, that it would be beneficial.

Most who go the industry or government route from my department go to large tech companies, big pharma, financial institutions, or government agencies (FDA, Freddie Mac, etc.). And I have only seen these alumni complete a single internship the summer before they graduated (and some didn't even do any internships at all).