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.