Getting a graduate degree in Statistics. Everyone who hears offers me help because they already took statistics...

I got a PhD in economics and I can’t tell you how many people try to teach me things they read on CNBC as if I’ve never heard of it before. For instance, “the Fed is raising rates because they want to increase the unemployment rate!” Holy smokes, I had never heard of that before! First off, that’s not even accurate. The Fed raises rates to reduce expenditures and thus reduce inflation. Higher unemployment is merely a consequence of that mechanism. But please tell me how wrong I am because you read a superficial article on CNBC and got an A in an entry level econ course where you just drew linear supply and demand curves all day. Anyways, as they say, ignorance is bliss. In your case people think all statistics is the same. They can’t comprehend you have to code your own statistical models from scratch and then write out pages of mathematical equations to prove the code is correct. To them statistics is hitting run regression and looking at the Rsquared value and saying, “yup, it’s 0.9, my model predicts reality almost perfectly!”

I only have a master’s degree in economics but the number of people I’ve met who think I’m a sheep for not agreeing with their constant predictions of hyperinflation or imminent economic crash they picked up from snake oil salesman financial quack is pretty rich as well. It’s not until you study a subject that you realize h out w little you truly know

This. People like to talk about things they don't understand. Most people are probably guilty of it to a degree.

Yeah, well the Physics PhD version of this is having to listen to the ‘wisdom’ of Neil deGrasse Tyson and explain to people that I don’t watch the Big Bang Theory. Better develop a thicker skin and accept the well-meaning and unwashed trying to ‘help.’

Recognize that most people just want to tell you what they know and are familiar with. Learn some spiel like “that’s not really my field in XX area of study” and “wow, I didn’t really know that.” Your likeability index will go through the roof with them and it will be over much quicker.

Statistically most Americans are not very smart due to a lack of proper education.

Well, when most people think of statistics they think of sports or lies, damn lies, and statistics. Once I was past Intro to stats I couldn’t fathom any of it.

You Americans really seem to love college. In the UK a masters or PhD is pretty much worthless.

lol who needs a phd in economics? its a scam and nothing else. economics "(pretend) nobel" prize was just given to a guy saying you should just print incredible amounts of money to prevent a crisis.

You really only need half an hour to understand all their is. higher productivity = more wealth. just do things that increase productivity. all the monetary talk is a scam.

who needs a full degree in statistics? the most important things you can learn in one course using libraries like sci-kit etc. Statistics without knowledge in the applied areas is useless either way. its the way we get people finding correlations everywhere that have no meaning.

There?

I’ve got a bachelor’s degree in the economics, and for some reason people think I’m an expert on taxes and stuff.

Yet many people from the UK come to the US for college. (I've seen the statistics)

Poseur detected.

Is this bot update? If you were serious about stats, you’d have mentioned R. Scikit-learn stats ‘R’ kinda weak.

When I was in graduate school, I avoided that problem by just stating whatever class I was taking. "Currently I'm studying multivariate linear modeling."

He needs a full degree so he teach stats. Or maybe get paid big bucks right away...

Anyway, 93% of all statistics are made up on the spot. 🙂

I have a PhD in Gender Studies and I always have less educated people telling me that they can tell the difference between a man and a woman.

I just laugh at them.

I'm pretty decent at stats, just post up here if you're struggling with your homework in stochastic processes or Bayesian modeling.

Yes people really are this ignorant--statistically speaking.

yeah I've encountered similar things as a math major. I was having a conversation with another math major about the difficulty of our algebra class, and someone listening jumped in, talking about how he received an "A" in high school algebra...we were talking about linear algebra, not middle-school level algebra.