Career Paths

A degree in statistics will lead to opportunities all over the world! Statisticians have a unique set of analytical skills that make them valuable in almost every area of industry and science.

With a degree in Statistics, you could work in:

• Marketing: Statisticians design experiments for evaluating new products and conduct focus groups and sample surveys to gauge customer opinions. They may also perform field experiments in new markets to determine demand for a certain product.
• Engineering: Statisticians use principles of hypothesis testing and quality assurance to make consistent products, detect production problems, and predict product life in electronics, chemicals, transportation, and construction.
• Computational biology/bioinformatics: Biologists produce petabytes of data to find cure for cancer and to breed more valuable animals and plants. They need statisticians and computer scientists to design, evaluate and interpret their experiments and to read DNA the blueprint of our lives!
• Computing: As a statistician, you could work in software design and development to create code and analytics platforms that are both user-friendly and statistically robust.
• Government: Major political decisions are increasingly based on comprehensive, reliable statistics of worldwide trends (we hope).
• Survey methods: Statisticians collect and interpret survey data from social sciences, education, law, forestry, agriculture, biology, medicine, and business.
• Epidemiology: Statistical prediction is vital to epidemiology! Statistics is used to calculate disease incidence rates and monitor outbreaks, and track changes in health-related behaviors.
• Pharmacology: Statisticians use quantitative methods to ensure the validity and accuracy of drug development and testing.
• Education: Statistics is essential in developing assessments of teacher effectiveness and models to represent student learning. Statisticians are also working to develop new instructional methods in statistics education.
• Consulting: As a statistician, you may be approached to work on a temporary basis solving new and unique problems for a client.
• Agriculture: Statisticians study the effectiveness of chemical pesticides and crop management techniques to ensure optimal yield.
• Ecology: Statisticians use evolving data to address questions about the natural world, often in partnership with scientists working in the field.

You can find Nebraska graduates working in all of these areas, and many more!