Unconventional background

[Confused123]

Hi! I’m seeking advice about how I should proceed about pursuing a masters and/or PhD in statistics. I currently hold a masters in psychology and did a fair amount of academic research and I took statistics classes in undergrad and grad school. As I was going through my masters and working in the field I realized the only area of interests was in research and stats. Since graduating last May I’ve been working as a data analyst at a tech company, but I’ve been wanting to go back to school to pursue a PhD in statistics. I think realistically I’ll have to get a masters first and then pursue a PhD. Like I mentioned I’ve taken undergrad and graduate statistics, but obviously admissions requires more than that- does anyone have any recommendations for how I should I prepare for admissions aside from a high quant score??

[bayessays]

How much advanced math have you taken? If you haven't taken more theoretical math/stats, it's hard to know what you would be getting yourself into. That would be my first step, to take the calculus and linear algebra classes. If you want to learn more applied statistics, there are plenty of master's degree for that. There are also psychological measurement/statistics programs where you could do applied statistics research without totally changing fields.  Finally, there are lower ranked biostatistics programs which are generally more applied.

[hcms1]

Do you actually want to do research in statistics, or do you want to do research using statistics? There is a difference, and it sounds like you are more interested in the latter.

[dmacfour]

On 4/29/2019 at 9:41 AM, Confused123 said:

Hi! I’m seeking advice about how I should proceed about pursuing a masters and/or PhD in statistics. I currently hold a masters in psychology and did a fair amount of academic research and I took statistics classes in undergrad and grad school. As I was going through my masters and working in the field I realized the only area of interests was in research and stats. Since graduating last May I’ve been working as a data analyst at a tech company, but I’ve been wanting to go back to school to pursue a PhD in statistics. I think realistically I’ll have to get a masters first and then pursue a PhD. Like I mentioned I’ve taken undergrad and graduate statistics, but obviously admissions requires more than that- does anyone have any recommendations for how I should I prepare for admissions aside from a high quant score??

I have a masters in psych and went in to statistics. Same reasons for you. 

You'll have to take the entire calc series and linear algebra to get in to most programs (even the applied statistics program I went in to). Even after that, I felt barely prepared for the theory sequence in my program. If you want to a theory heavy masters (which you'll want to do if you're interested in a PhD), then you'll probably want to take a lot more math than that. 

 

By the way, what's your endgame for getting a PhD in stats? What academic statisticians do can be quite a bit different than what you're doing as an analyst and how you use stats in research. I chose the applied stats route because it better lined up with my career goals.

Edited May 3, 2019 by dmacfour