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I am considering applying for a MS in Biostatistics. I come from an Economics/International Affairs background (have a bachelor's and master's in International Relations and Economics) and I am rather intimidated by the fact that, according to my research so far, almost everybody in biostats programs seems to be either Math or Stats majors...
I have just finished taking Linear Algebra, Calc I, II, III and Introductory Statistics at my local community college and easily got straight A's in all of them, without struggling but still, I assume and fear that local community college level for Calculus is nothing compared to the rigor and extremely high levels of demand and difficulty elicited by graduate level courses in Biostatistics (like probability theory or Mathematical statistics)...
I am just wondering, if anybody has any first hand experience with this, just how hard/abstract is the math for a MS in biostats? I've read on other forums regular horror stories about how brutal it is but given that these things are pretty subjective, I dont know what to think..
Do you think that someone coming from a non-math background would do decent in these high level math classes? Again, I have had no difficulty to Calc I through III and Linear Algebra but that's because the work, problems we were doing were pretty much "just turn the crank" kinda things. Nothing too abstract or too theoretical. But I do notice that I have difficulty with mathematical abstractions and more theoretical stuff...
What do you guys think?
Any advice, thoughts on this would be highly appreciated.
You definitely have basic understanding of math and statistics up to the intermediate level.
I recommend a compromise. You are right about the ultra-elevated rigor of math majors in a master's program.
I have witnessed this. The public health statistics I took with healthcare and business majors was significantly less difficult than the engineering statistics I took with the engineering majors. They usually score in the 80th% or higher in the GRE. Many took engineering calculus I to V, numerical methods, fourier analysis, finite element methods, or tensor calculus. These are the same students who got perfect or near perfect SAT scores when they were teens. In graduate school you also have to deal with international competition from countries that generally score much higher in math than the USA: Singapore, China, Korea, India, Germany, etc.
So what is the compromise?
Business Intelligence with SAS for the purpose of data mining and data warehousing in the College of Business. It utilizes basic calculus and statistics like the type you mastered at the community college. This curriculum also includes software and databases. Just take discrete math with the rest of the curriculum. Learn some programming and database development. JavaScript and Java are easy to learn. So is SQL. Just be sure to include the discrete math (level I at least). You should do great. The demand for business intelligence and data mining is very, very high.
DO NOT do these programs. They are clear cash cows and the grads from them are notoriously poor. We hire data scientists and do not hire from such analytics or data science grad programs. In fact, most of the grads from such programs that I've interacted with, are very poor
Thank you for your reply, grad_student200. I will look into some of the options you recommended but just to clarify: I come for a foreign country (Eastern Europe) where I completed both high-school (mathematics profile), as well as university level education. When I moved here, I was baffled to remark the fact that the kind of "higher-level" math classes done at community colleges here are nothing compared to the math that I was doing in high-school which, by my last year in high-school, had pretty much gotten close to the level of real analysis type of stuff...
So, it's not that I'd shy away from hard math at a master's level, I have dealt with it before, I didnt find it particularly easy back then and I'd probably struggle with it in grad school, which is ok, again, I'm not the kind of person who'd slack off or not be willing to put 40 hours a week, if necessary, into school work. I guess what I'm afraid of is not being able to maintain at least a B in all these higher level math classes (again, I'm not even sure how "high" they'd get for a MS in Biostats).. What amplifies my fears is the fact that getting a master's in this country (from avery prestigious, good school) isnt exactly cheap, like in Europe, for instance so.. I cant afford to get into something I'll make a loan for and then not be able to complete it.
Also, if you dont mind my asking, grad_student200, what is your major? Like, did you actually get a master's in Statistics or Biostatistics? You said at some point that the public health statistics classes you took with healthcare and business majors was much easier than stats took with engineering majors?n Should I assume then that the stats I would be taking for a biostatistics (public-health-related) field, would be relatively easier than say, the statistics I would deal with if I was in a pure math or engineering field?
Maybe he has space on the wall for another diploma.
Actually, it's because the BA and Master's degrees I already have are from a foreign country (I'm not American) and to my chagrin, I have discovered upon moving here in 2014 that unless you have a degree from either an American university or a super prestigious European university (like Oxford, Cambdridge, Sorbonne and the likes), it's super difficult to get a good job here.
Plus, business and economics as I have come to realise later on, after I graduated, are not really my thing unfortunately so I figured that if I have to start all over again, I might as well mix some of the things I already know (math, stats) with something that I'm more passionate about (health science, epidemiology, disease outbreaks and prevention) like biostatistics.
DO NOT do these programs. They are clear cash cows and the grads from them are notoriously poor. We hire data scientists and do not hire from such analytics or data science grad programs. In fact, most of the grads from such programs that I've interacted with, are very poor
Thank you for your reply and input on the issue. So, from your experience would you say that a master's in biostatistics from a prestigious school (Georgetown, George Washington, Johns Hopkins are among the ones I plan on applying to) is more employable or better regarded than these business/data analytics programs?
Also, any input or advice regarding my original question about the level of math taught at these particular ms in biostats?
Thank you for your reply and input on the issue. So, from your experience would you say that a master's in biostatistics from a prestigious school (Georgetown, George Washington, Johns Hopkins are among the ones I plan on applying to) is more employable or better regarded than these business/data analytics programs?
Also, any input or advice regarding my original question about the level of math taught at these particular ms in biostats?
Thank you.
Your math coursework is fine, especially in regard to a MS in Biostats. If you want a PhD in Biostats at a top school (Univ of WA, JHU, etc), then it may be a different story.
It depends on what you want to do. I generally suggested that anyone who is interested in Data Science or statistics jobs should study stats or biostats. Most DS jobs are technical, and statistics jobs have increasingly gone that route also, so whatever you do , make sure to take some CS coursework OR learn to program well.
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