What kind of jobs are in Statistics?

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This is my 11 yr olds strongest strength in school. Always makes 4's (proficient) or 100 percent on the Star Testing in school every year.

Trying to figure this out to see if this is a good direction to point him to with a future job.

Now if he thinks different when he's older and wants to do something different, more power to him for his choice. But it made me think.

What kind of a job could you get when you have this kind of strength?

BTW he also has some learning disabilities, so he does have some weakness's. It's obvious to me that I should help him go with the strength here.

Thanks
Lainie

Okay, I know a couple things in this area. I suck at statistics though; however, this is what I know.

To get any math job...go for the Phd. there are exceptions.

Statistician - often work for companies - good salary, but a Masters degree is the minimum for them to even notice you.

Statisticial Assistant - same as above but only an AA or a BA will do, and you make a lot less money (15-25 thousand a year); plus there are not many jobs out there (and absolutely none in Florida)

Junior College professor - medium salary (30 - 50 thousand range), Masters is necessary, and usually will do.

Actuary - B.A. to get in the door - 12 extra exams to pass, M.A. most likely will guarantee a job. Pay - really nice! (40-80 thousand range) - they do insurance formulas and model projections.

One other possibility - however...good luck - A government job requires a B.A. but it is almost impossible to get one unless you really know someone. Good salary though (but usually a little less than corporate).

That is all I know secret agents....please don't hit me again. That light is too bright, isn't it? lol just kidding.

Hey thanks alot, that helps alot. He is overall really good in math (except this year his problems with memory of multiplication is giving him problems with figureing out the final problem, but I know it's due to his LD's and we can get thru this)

This clears things up for me quite abit.

Lainie

Being good at math in general is a great thing and there's virtually unlimited fields to go into, but if it's isolated to statistics, then perhaps business or accounting or economics would work.

For now though, there's a long way to go before having to worry about jobs and such especially if you're aiming towards college or such. Making sure that he is getting attention to his strengths as well as his weaknesses/LD is probably the best thing to do right now.

I know cause I have some LD's and always the attention at school was paid to my weaknesses and I kind of had to work on my strengths (math) by myself, a more accelerated math program would have really helped... (I'm in college now)

He could be a teacher. I have a career in marketing (long story), and we had lots of statistics classes, and there's definitely a wide field of action in there. Market research definitely is a good place for statistics. The census also. And beer companies do a lot of statistics and research... (I remember going to an interview once... lots of statistics about price drops, stores, prices, etc etc etc)
I mentioned the teacher thing because my teachers were excellent, and some of them kind of eccentric haha!

There could also be some other places, I'll try to think about it.

Also a career in Finance (Finances? sorry, don't know the english word) is very cool, I loved it.

I work in a major public hospital and we have statisticians.

Statisticians can work in public health - analysing trends/costs etc

Helen

Thanks again guys!
Lots of great idea's here. And yes I do agree this is pretty early to think about, but since he always scored so high, I just wondered about what kind of jobs you could get with a strength like this.

Guess what my son's main obsession is? You got it, Money, Business, and sales lol.

And LOL@ the beer company. I think my husband would like that job instead hehehehe

Lainie

I write software for the automation of statistical risk analysis for the biggest bank in the U.S. I make a pretty good living with my aspie obsession.

Oh and I knew this is what I wanted to do from the time I was about 4 years old.

He could be a researcher, though they have programs that do the entire statistical analysis for you. You just have to enter the data and click how you want in analyzed. So in that token maybe he should be geared towards developing statistical analysis software like SPSS

Statistics are used a lot by insurance companies. He could become an actuary.

Here's a link with info on pursuing a profession as an actuary.

http://www.beanactuary.org/about/whatis.cfm

Financial, Marketing, Market, etc. analyst

systems development related to the above

none of these require tons of people skills unless you want to get into management.

anything requiring ability to understand, manipulate, and model complex data really.


these pay $$$$$. Get him an internship at a bank (HQ not branch) when he's old enough. Computer skills around this ability are a must.

I've gotten ahead of myself considering the age but it's the path that leads to the most rewarding (financially) career given his strengths/weaknesses.

Scientific research is the most intellectually rewarding but the pay is nothing short of horrendous.

Research. There's TONS of stats in research. The nice thing there is that you can research just about anything.

Operations research uses a lot of statistics.
Neural nets, fuzzy logic and genetic algorithms all use statistical logic.
The Navy uses a Bayesian statistical algorithm when they search for something lost at sea.
Weather and climate trend analyses use heavy statistical modeling.
The FBI does actually use statistical models of criminals in the Behavioral Analysis Unit.

And so on.

Statistics and economics have been obsessions of mine since we studied them when I was in second grade. Whether it's baseball statistics or the effects of Federal Reserve rate cuts, I find it all fascinating. Now I'm majoring in Business with an emphasis on Finance at the University of Washington. I still love it, and for the first time since kindergarten, I'm actually enjoying school too. I couldn't be happier with what I'm doing. So I would definitely encourage him if this is an interest of his.

A lot of companies utilize a problem-solving methodology called Six Sigma. Six Sigma is heavily focused on the statistical analysis of data. I work in Six Sigma at my company, and a person who was a whiz at stats would be a real good team member.

Six Sigma is not a degree area, basically you are a businessperson who gets some extra training on stats. However, to do Six Sigma really well you need to eat, breath, and live statistics. An analytical mind is also needed.