Joey Jennings writes:
I’m a first-year statistics major and wanted to reach out because statistics and political science were my two main options when choosing a major, and I’m still considering law school down the line.
I’m very interested in how statistical thinking intersects with politics, public policy, and legal reasoning, and your career seems to embody that combination. I was hoping to ask whether you have any general advice for a student early in college who is trying to keep these paths open and build a strong foundation.
My response: I think I’m too old and too privileged to offer much useful advice to a young student just starting out. My own experience is that I always loved math but I didn’t want to do pure math–it just seemed pointless to try to prove theorems, knowing that there would be other mathematicians who were better than me, proving better theorems–, I studied physics, but then I took some classes in probability and statistics and the subject really grooved with me. I also took some political science classes, and it was interesting to see the relevance of mathematical and statistical ideas in understanding various aspects of voting and political representation. Back then the state of the art in political analytics was pretty low. There was some good work, but also lots of unthinking applications of inappropriate models, so there were lots of openings for a student to do innovative work. I guess things are even better now, in the sense that you can do innovative work at a much higher level, making use of what’s already out there.
As for advice: ok, yeah, I still think it’s a good idea to “learn to code.” Coding is the most rigorous thing out there, and it’s how we understand our statistical models (as discussed in our Bayesian Workflow book). Work on real applications where you can. And choose your courses more based on the quality of the teachers than on the descriptions of the classes.
And, ummm, anyone else out there have any further advice to offer?
Intern at your statehouse and canvas for a campaign. Local enough to both make an impact and feel the impact and actually experience how politics works. Don’t start your career hiding behind a computer.
Do both. A friend of mine did financial mathematics and political science, and the workload wasn’t too bad. The political science, he said, they dished out A’s like candy, and it was mostly essay based. He would make fun of them. As long as you get it done, it gets done, and you won’t fail. Whereas for a math exam, you can study endlessly and still fail. But I think it’s a strong combo, given that many politicians are not quantitatively trained, I think to pursue political science and take applied statistics seriously, have the ability determine quantitative/economic effects of policy is a smart idea. Think about it, we give them all of this money, and where does it go? We need to know how effective a policy was. Also learning a foreign language thoroughly, the ability to really hold a conversation is an indispensable skill, especially for social sciences, if you’re looking work with people from different backgrounds. Minimum 3 years, minor may be too much, but spend some time in different countries for fluency.
Not sure, I try to mute politicians as much as possible. Think, politicians just say, “we are working too…” and they take money, raise funds, and then nothing happens? None of them can do any math! Their goal is argmax take money, and then that’s their endpoint…
If you’re federally funded get as much as you can out to of it. Another friend of mine worked out, that financially it’s in your best interest to either not pay back your student loans, or pay the minimum amount, as immoral as it sounds ;). I’m no longer eligible for federal funding. I have to work.
Anon:
Regarding your first paragraph: I got perfect grades in all my statistics classes but sometimes got B’s in my political science classes. The political science classes were mostly essay based, and I learned a lot from writing these essays.
Maybe you teach it differently, but in my experience political science has gotten a bit diluted at many universities. Basically anyone who’s serious about learning political science gets a PhD or takes graduate classes, while the undergrad degree requirements have become a standard track for pre-law–pre-med–pre-MBA students.
Yeah, but PhD’s are so competitive, it’s a toss up about admission, not necessarily work ethic or skills. So if we’re listening to PhD’s, we’re listening to a random outcome on some probability model. Also those with more resources are generally more likely be admitted due to financial, social support and time. Otherwise, it’s nearly impossible. 2/30000 applicants get funded. Waste of money and time, if you ask me. After taking graduate level math classes, go read a book.
This is terrible advice unless you plan on not taking out any more loans for years, maybe even a decade.
This is obviously correct. If you have an interest rate of like 4%, it’s obviously better to defer the payment and invest in the stock market. I’m not sure why it would sound immoral at all to pay the minimum amount. Those are the terms of a loan.
Agree it is terrible advice. But you would want to think about options like public service loan forgiveness by going into a public service career. But obviously that’s because the salaries are lower!
How does one accomplish this:
“And choose your courses more based on the quality of the teachers than on the descriptions of the classes.”
At my University I get the feeling that students don’t have a good gauge on this.
Asking other students for “good professors” or any of the proxies, like “class you would take again”.
So I’m in the middle of advising season.
The recent book that I read is called Hacking College by Laff and Carlson. Their main point is that what you need to think about how to fill in the spaces around your major and minor. Look for specific other classes that will relate to things you want to do. For example, if you are interested in actually being involved in politics maybe do a market research class (because guess what, elections are marketing) or for the same reason, a basic business and/or accounting class will give you some useful skills.
Also, just to be clear, make sure besides the classes you are taking in statistics that you take some classes in which you use data to answer questions based on in depth understanding of the questions and where data come from, why you are choosing the variables you are choosing, and really basic understanding of how to present results from data to a non statistical, but smart, audience. I get a lot of math and CS students in my data science class and what is shocking is how little they know about actual coding as opposed to the theory of coding. Find an open source project and dive in.
Definitely also get involved in things in a real way. Find an organization and really engage with it. It could be a campus organization, it could be off campus.
The biggest thing is to remember that what you think a major is about is often not what the major is about and that undergraduate major is not that associated with what you will doing 10 years after you graduate. You don’t have to major in PS because you want to go to law school or be a biology major to go to med school.
And in the first two years of college really take advantage of the Gen Ed requirements to try out different topics
Finally, I can’t tell from your question whether you are interested in this topic from an academic perspective (you want to understand how these intersect) or from a “I want a job in this space” perspective. So that’s something worth thinking about.
I’ll pass on the advice I got from my Director of Studies a million years ago. Always choose options that will teach you things that are hard to learn on your own out in the world after graduation. Which often boiled down to doing mathematical and science things.
It worked for me. But you are you and the times may be different.
To add: if mastering something requires lab work, do it at university.
Choose any specific, individual, major political survey. Figure out how they calculated “margin of error”. When you’re done with that, you will know which path to take.
Name-brand law schools like math-y majors, although they are a bit glutted with economics majors. They also like philosophy, fwiw. I think that “statistics” would look better than “political science” to a law school admissions committee. But then again, I’ve been out of that game for several decades now.