Statistics ambassador Leah Decatus-Haddad shares her plans for after graduation, and the opportunities here at Illinois that she’s taken advantage of to help get her closer to those goals.

Hello! My name is Leah, and I am currently a junior majoring in Statistics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Honestly, even just a year ago, post graduation plans seemed so far out of reach. As someone who didn’t even know what major to choose until my sophomore year (hence putting me a bit behind in stats course work lol),  having concrete goals or plans seemed entirely unfathomable to me. I had no motivations or passions, so instead of thinking too hard about the future, I didn’t think about it at all. I constantly compared myself to other students, which only made my mental health worse and made me more aimless than I already was.

However, once I decided on my major (yay Statistics!!!), it became a lot easier to put the pieces together for my future. To make a long story short, post-graduation, I intend to attend a graduate program in biostatistics, with a concentration in clinical trial and experiment design. And while that may seem like a very refined goal for someone who said they have none, it took a while for me to decide on this path.

As someone who has always enjoyed reading and learning new things, I was drawn to statistics when I took STAT 100 in my freshman year. I enjoyed researching, analyzing data, and learning about data gaps present in our daily lives. Luckily for me, the Statistics major has an abundance of research opportunities.

One such research opportunity is the Blackwell Scholars Program, which I participated in Summer 2024. The program exposed me to how experiments are designed and conducted, which peaked my interest in experiment design. Through the program, I got to network with other students, faculty, and staff in the department. Faculty within the Statistics department are always willing to talk to students and answer questions about their careers and the work they do. By talking with Statistics faculty members about the different work you can do with Statistics, my goals started to form. They also helped me decide what kind of post graduate degree (PhD or Masters) works best for the kind of work I intend to pursue, and their guidance was very helpful in me deciding to attend graduate school. The research experience and networking opportunities the program offered me put me on a path to deciding what to do after I graduate.

Through my connections from the Blackwell scholars program, I was introduced to the Undergraduate Research Experience in Statistics (URES) program, a program offered by the Statistics department that aims to involve undergraduate students in statistics research. One of the professors I met through the program offered me the opportunity to be involved in URES, and I have been a URES scholar ever since. Through URES, I am able to research a variety of questions that I am interested in, with the guidance of experienced faculty members. By participating in URES, my passion for research and experiments has only grown, and so has my coding and computational skills.

Another thing I am passionate about is women’s advocacy. It is no secret that despite how far our society has come in terms of gender equality, there are still many barriers that women face in our daily lives. Learning more about gender data gaps revealed how inequitable our society is, especially concerning health. Clinical trials for pharmaceutical and medical treatments do not disaggregate for sex, so oftentimes, researchers do not know how such treatments affect female anatomy. Learning this through my exposure to research prompted me to focus on filling the gender data gap, especially pertaining to health, and is the reason I want to work in experimental design. I want to design experiments that focus on how medical treatments affect female bodies, which will allow treatment developers to create treatments that are better suited for female bodies.

From my passion for women’s advocacy, and the lack of a Statistics RSO on campus, myself and other women majoring in Statistics at Illinois decided to create the first Women in Stats club this semester. The statistics advising staff was there every step of the way, from getting us connected with other women and underrepresented communities in the Stats major, to booking our space for our meetings.

While it may appear that I have everything figured out, I want to emphasize that it took a long time for me to get to this point. Like many other students, I struggle a lot with imposter syndrome, and often feel like I am not doing enough, that I am not smart enough, capable enough, or focused enough. It’s important to keep in mind that everyone moves at their own pace, and everyone comes from different backgrounds and has different experiences that shape who they are, the choices they make, and the goals and plans they have. I always used to dismiss it when people say that no one has it figured out, but honestly that’s true. And the Statistics Department is there for you. Professors are always willing to talk to students about academics and research, and the advising team is always lending a helpful hand. With the help of the Stats department, I was able to refine my plans, and intertwine the Stats curriculum with issues that I am passionate about.

Ashrith Anumala, senior in Statistics & Computer Science, walks us along his path to deciding on Illinois for his undergraduate career.

You may be wondering how I got here. Back in high school I had no real idea of what I planned on doing and was in a general whirlwind of confusion when it came to picking a college and a major. Most people seemed to have figured it out, but I couldn’t say the same.

I would like to say I ended up studying Stats & CS here because of fate, but the truth is that it was a complete accident. Being out of state, I knew virtually nothing about Illinois except that a friend I knew enjoyed her time there. That seemed good enough for me to apply. I enjoyed my high school computer science class, so naturally I leaned towards that major. I was looking to select it on the application for Illinoi until I was bombarded by what seemed like a million different options. CS + Agriculture, CS & Math, CS + linguistics, and the list just kept going. And then I came across CS & Stats. At the time, I was taking stats in high school and had generally enjoyed it, so half-heartedly clicked it as my intended major and pressed submit.

Months later, after I had even forgotten that I applied as Stats & CS, I received my acceptance. I initially dismissed Illinois and remember laughing with my friends about the miles and miles of cornfields surrounding the school. But, I was close to a few of my teachers in high school and when I told them that I had gotten into the program, they immediately urged me to consider it. I remember reviewing the curriculum with one teacher, who told me it’d be a great opportunity for me and I’d probably really enjoy it. This got my gears turning, “What if I actually went there?”

The more I looked into it, the more I envisioned myself going there. Many of the graduates I saw online went to work in cool fields (sports analytics & financial technology) and lived in cool places (NY!). This continued to fuel my excitement. After talking it over with my parents and reaching out to a couple of students I knew on campus, my concerns about the location and the overall program began fading away. I truly started believing I could enjoy my life in the cornfields. By early April, I made my decision: I was going to Illinois.

Between enrolling and the first day of class, two events really reassured my decision. Firstly, I attended one of the Admitted Students days on campus. My gut reaction was that it shouldn’t be this cold in April. But as I talked to my fellow admitted students, many of them expressed admiration about the program I was going to be a part of and I learned more about the school. I would definitely recommend attending one of these events. The second event was my freshman registration meeting with my advisor, Jen. As I hadn’t really taken a math or a computer science class in the past year, I was a little worried about how I’d be doing. Senioritis was at an all time high and I retained almost no information. She encouraged me to take all the introductory classes and reassured me that I would be in a great learning environment with tons of other freshmen from out of state, further reducing my concerns about attending.

Now that I’m about to graduate, I could not be more grateful for that seemingly random decision to apply to be a part of statistics at Illinois. I’ve not once thought about changing my major. This program has taught me everything I could have asked for and has given me access to opportunities my high school self couldn’t even think of. For prospective students, my advice is to reach out to current students or advisors to help answer any questions or concerns you may have about the school or college in general. People here are extremely friendly and I’m sure they’ll do a great job of helping you figure out what you could potentially get out of being at Illinois.