How Math Thinking and Stats Thinking Go Together

Even before arriving in Grinnell, Austin Himschoot ’19 knew he was going to be a math major. His grandfather was a math professor and his entire family is very mathematically minded. But he also dabbled in physics, economics, computer science, religious studies, and history.

“I didn’t know that I wanted to do statistics until my third year,” Austin says. “I was taking a probability theory course with Professor [Pamela] Fellers and I really enjoyed it and thought it came easy to me.” After taking a few more stats classes and building meaningful relationships with his professors, Himschoot decided to officially declare a concentration in statistics.

With such a math intensive course load, was there much overlap between his math and statistics classes? Himschoot says, “In some instances, yes. Probability theory is more on the ‘mathy’ side of statistics. In Statistical Modeling and Design and Analysis of Experiments there is some overlap, but it is mostly in the equations and formulas. Overall, the thinking is different; [stats] is more of an applied use of [math].”

Immediately following his graduation, Himschoot began working at the Georgia Tech Research Institute where he’s pursuing a master’s degree in science and analytics. He found much of his work at GTRI to be the same as it was at Grinnell. “I’ve been able to use the skills I developed [as an undergrad] and transfer them here to my job at GTRI.”

One day, he says, “I hope to be doing analytics as the head of the department or working my way up in that department.”