Statistical Practice B.A.
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College of Liberal Arts (TCLA)
202 - Bachelor of Arts
Program description
Statistics and Data Science are the sciences of gathering and learning from data, of measuring, controlling, and communicating uncertainty, and of leveraging existing data sets and creating new ones to extract meaningful information and actionable insights. They provide the navigation essential for controlling the course of scientific and societal advances.
The statistical practice BA is intended for students who want to use their education as certification for work requiring data scientific and statistical skills or as a basis for further education in another area like medicine, psychology, law, journalism, public policy, or other areas. There are two subplans (one of which must be selected).
One subplan is in Applied Statistics. This subplan can be compared easily to the Statistics BS degree, where the former reduces the number of required mathematics courses and increases the number of applied statistics courses, or courses in a supporting quantitative area. Students who complete this program using statistics electives will have applied statistics training equivalent to most master's programs in statistics.
The other subplan is in Data Science. Data Science involves being able to extract and clean (large volumes of) data from a variety of sources, analyze that data statistically, and help put the data analysis results in context for decision-making. Accordingly, the Data Science subplan requires fewer statistics electives than either the Applied Statistics Subplan or the Statistics BS but more computer science classes (needed for data wrangling) and more classes outside of Statistics to encourage and allow both big-picture thinking about data and domain specialization. Indeed, since Data Science involves domain specialization, this subplan includes a variety of "emphasis" options, which range from engineering to the social sciences, so students can choose to focus on building tools for automation or on specific domains of societal interest that are built on or benefit from careful data analysis.
The statistical practice BA is intended for students who want to use their education as certification for work requiring data scientific and statistical skills or as a basis for further education in another area like medicine, psychology, law, journalism, public policy, or other areas. There are two subplans (one of which must be selected).
One subplan is in Applied Statistics. This subplan can be compared easily to the Statistics BS degree, where the former reduces the number of required mathematics courses and increases the number of applied statistics courses, or courses in a supporting quantitative area. Students who complete this program using statistics electives will have applied statistics training equivalent to most master's programs in statistics.
The other subplan is in Data Science. Data Science involves being able to extract and clean (large volumes of) data from a variety of sources, analyze that data statistically, and help put the data analysis results in context for decision-making. Accordingly, the Data Science subplan requires fewer statistics electives than either the Applied Statistics Subplan or the Statistics BS but more computer science classes (needed for data wrangling) and more classes outside of Statistics to encourage and allow both big-picture thinking about data and domain specialization. Indeed, since Data Science involves domain specialization, this subplan includes a variety of "emphasis" options, which range from engineering to the social sciences, so students can choose to focus on building tools for automation or on specific domains of societal interest that are built on or benefit from careful data analysis.
Program last updated
Spring 2025