Data Boom: The field of statistics is soaring—according to latest stats.

When Douglas Simpson arrived on the University of Illinois campus in 1985 to take his first professorship straight out of grad school, the time-traveling movie Back to the Future ruled the theaters and the U of I Department of Statistics had just been founded. Today, the field of statistics is booming, and that’s something no one but a time traveler, back from the future, might have predicted in 1985, when the U of I department had only a handful of students.

Fittingly, statistics back up the stunning rise in statistics.

Even as recently as 10 to 15 years ago, the Department of Statistics had only about 30 undergrads, five to 10 master’s students, and maybe 17 to 20 PhD students, Simpson says. Since then, the number of undergrads has skyrocketed to about 200, the number of master’s students has gone up eight times to over 80, and the numbr of PhD students has nearly doubled to 35.

…Read the rest of the article at http://www.las.illinois.edu/news/2013/statisticsdept/.

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