Dear Members of the Committee on Applied Statisticians
For future discussion, some comments (below) were received at ASA about the Master's Notebook Column.
Personally I don't believe that the comments were directed at any one particular column, but more at the title and/or sentence written immediately after the title in Amstat News in the Table of Contents. It may be time to revise that sentence (and/or title). This would also help focus future articles as to what the column is meant to achieve.
Since your committee has been contributing most (all?) of the articles in recent months or longer, I thought you would want to know about comments received and have an opportunity suggest possible changes or to support what is currently there.
Thanks, Lynn
I have a few comments regarding the Master's Notebook column in Amstat News. I find the content of the column occasionally juvenile - as in "for you Master's folks who find the other articles in here difficult to comprehend, here is something just for you" I think it furthers the notion that master's members of the ASA are the dullards of the association rather than increasing the feeling of inclusion or the notion that someone with a master's degree could be successful in their career.
If the intention is to provide information to 'new' or 'young' statisticians - master's or PhD or otherwise - then the material is perfect (but the title of the column should be changed). Having hired many master's and PhD statisticians, I know the early career experience is similar for both in industry settings. If the intention is to appeal to the master's statistician, there should be some acknowledgement that master's statisticians exist with varying experience and career levels.
Thanks for your time - the issue certainly isn't limited to this column (refer to the recent article in Amstat News titled 'Preparing Master's statistics students for success' which includes only a casual mention that these guidances might be helpful for PhD candidates also...I would argue the need for reform is far greater for PhD students seeking positions in industry). However, the title and content of this column perpetuate the notion that masters-level graduates are the data-monkeys for the real thinkers in an analytics organization.
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J. Lynn Palmer
Director of Programs
American Statistical Association
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