Required Courses in Stats PhD Programs

[Egnargal]

In determining which school I would attend for a PhD in statistics, I was especially attentive to the number of courses required to complete the program. Today, I happened to look at PSU's PhD stats program, and the number of required core and elective courses seems excessive! In comparison, the program I am in now has at most one year of required courses. For anyone in a PhD program that requires a large number of courses, how was your experience? Did you find the courses to be valuable ultimately? How did you manage to complete the courses and get started on research?

[Casorati]

I have a friend who is attending PSU's statistics PhD program. According to him, the coursework at PSU is indeed intense and each term he takes three courses and each course has weekly assignment. He has to take two full years of very theoretical courses. I am now attending one of the top statistics PhD programs in Canada and I only need to take 5 courses and I can choose whatever courses I want to take. I choose probability this term and plan to choose a second probability course next term. They are challenging but I found them extremely rewarding.

[Stat Assistant Professor]

At my PhD program, we had to take 2 full years of required classes, including two semesters of measure theoretic probability, and each of the first two years was followed by a 4-hour written exam. Then you had to take 4 additional electives, so most students didn't finish classes until their third (or fourth year, if they really dragged out the requirement). But it was typically 3 classes a semester for the first two years, and then 1-2 classes per semester after that.

For this reason, the overwhelming majority of students in my program didn't start research until the summer after their second year (one exceptional student started it in his first year, because he did an independent study and actually got publishable results just from that). Most people started after their second year and still graduated within 5 years, so it didn't seem as though the coursework really put anyone "behind." This past year, only one of the fifth year students graduated, while the rest of that cohort staying for a sixth year --  however, that was mainly because of the disruption caused by COVID, the temporary suspension on H1-B visas, etc. I'm sure under "normal" circumstances, most of the 5th year students would have graduated.

If excessive coursework is a potential concern, you could ask the graduate coordinator what the mean time for completion is. If the average completion time still seems reasonable to you, then I wouldn't be too deterred by the coursework.  

As for the value of the coursework... I certainly don't use everything from what I learned (rather, bits and pieces here and there). But I think that it did help indirectly and made me more mathematically mature. I also gained a greater appreciation for probability theory later on when I was exploring the more theoretical aspects of my research, even though I found it very abstract and difficult when I was taking it.

[bayessays]

Some programs are really excessive - I doubt that many people would find this level of coursework useful (rather than just having the freedom to take the electives).  When the program has 2.5 years of required courses, that probably means every student is taking a few extra applied classes beyond linear models, such as design of experiments, a Bayesian class, maybe a consulting practicum. Multiple semesters of probability theory and perhaps an additional class on stochastic processes. A computing class, etc... It's a lot, and most the classes should really be electives imo.  I don't think there is much justification for having more than ~6 required courses for everyone and leaving the rest up to students and their advisors. In addition to PSU, Ohio State sticks out to me as a program with way too many classes and too many quals.  After getting a master's at a place with a coursework intensive program, I decided to attend a program with very few course requirements for my PhD.