STATISTICS—THE COURSE THAT SHOULD BE REQUIRED.

STATISTICS—THE COURSE THAT SHOULD BE REQUIRED. Meyer Burstein used to tell his economics students that the one course that should be required in college was statistics. My nephew Andrew Schaefer (a mathematics professor) has told me that he believes that statistics is important enough that it should be used in preference to physics for examples and applications in mathematics courses. Over time I have come to believe that statistics should be a required course because of the world view that it provides. If a student comes away from the course with an increased recognition of how much uncertainty there is in the world, that alone makes the course worth it.