SIBS Participants, how was it?

[GoPackGo89]

For those who have attended a SIBS, what was your experience like?

 What were the backgrounds of your peers? 

Those now in graduate school in stats or biostats, did you feel SIBS helped you prepare for grad school?

Thanks for taking time to answer 

 

[cyberwulf]

From a faculty perspective, SIBS is certainly a "thing to do" but typically doesn't provide much useful prep for grad school in biostatistics. It is most useful for those who have no idea what biostatistics is and want an introduction to the field.

If you are already sold on biostatistics, SIBS likely won't boost your application that much since: 1) a lot of applicants do SIBS, so it's not a differentiator, and 2) because the programs are so large (20+ students), letters from SIBS advisors/mentors are typically pretty generic. Honestly, I think a potential biostat applicant's time would be much better spent doing a research project (or smaller REU) over the summer.

[GoPackGo89]

Thank you @cyberwulf

[GoPackGo89]

@cyberwulf Would you mind sharing your thoughts on other stats/biostats sumer programs as far as preparation for grad school? RUSIS, Harvard's biostat/comp bio, Michigans big data summer institute, Carnegie Mellons REU?

Or if anyone else has experience/has opinions about them

Thanks!

[JDM]

Hi,

I did the program at Columbia. Roughly half of the people in my cohort had never taken a statistics class so there was a lot of catching up to be done. The 7 week intro to biostatistics class they provided me was more comprehensive than the one I took at Berkeley (which grad students in the Epi/Biostats MPH must take as well).

I took a graduate biostat class in Berkeley in Categorical Analysis with Stata. At the end of the SIBS program, I was able to use R to perform the same modelling techniques taught to me in the Berkeley class. The most useful thing to come out of the experience was the letter of recommendation as I was accepted to 4/4 of universities I applied to, albeit they were programs in epidemiology and data science. I believe the letter played a huge role in my application. My advisor ony mentored 2 students and that was the case for most so they got to know us. I also wrote my own letter of recc and just asked them to sign it and turn it in so maybe it wasn't that generic.

Accepted to UK Schools

LSHTM - Epi

Imperial College - Epi

Leeds - Epi & Biostats

Manchester - Health Data Science

Edit: It was definitely worth it for my classmates who chose to go to Columbia. We were promised $10k automatic scholarships if we chose to got Mailman although I don't know if they still offer that to their participants.

Edited March 2, 2017 by JDM
left something out

[Dora the Destroyer]

Damn that's so hood!!!