Careers with a masters in statistics

[bonfire09]

I will be attending a graduate school (masters program) in fall not sure where I will be accepted. I was wondering in the meantime what could I do to become more employable. I've been reading and it says that knowing certain types of programming languages is necessary such as R and sql. I really want to work in the finance industry and that's what I would like to focus on. Since I have the summer off I'd like to get to a head start. Basically what should I start doing?

 

[wukunlin]

If I were you I would have a look at internship programmes in the big 4 audit firms. See if anything they do interest you. Even if what you do as a intern isn't directly relevant to what you think you will be doing, just having an internship on your CV demonstrate that you got some experience outside schools. You also get to know people in the companies that can help you with future job applications.

 

[Locrian]

Why restrict yourself to finance? With a masters in stats, there's lots of interesting, well paying work out there.

Agree about the internship. Try anywhere you'd get to use sql, sas, or other statistical package.

 

[StatGuy2000]

I agree with the other posters about pursuing internship opportunities related to statistics. Also don't restrict yourself to the finance industry, but also consider internships to market research firms or any firms specializing in "big data", insurance companies, pharma companies or contract research organizations (CROs) specializing in providing services to the pharma sector -- all of these fields hire masters level statisticians, and the skills you acquire in one can be transferable to these other companies as well.

I would also agree about the need to pick up some programming skills in SAS, R, or SQL (especially SAS or R).