u/MediumLog6435

Hello!

I'm a sophomore undergrad studying applied math and stats who is broadly interested in applied stats research. Essentially, I'm trying to figure out how to balance exploration to find what exactly I want to do research in with deep-diving in order to develop skills (and resume) for grad school.

What is scary to me is how little time it feels like I have. Freshman year I didn't do anything that is particularly useful for grad school. So I now basically have two years + two summers before grad school apps. If I spend sophomore year doing something that doesn't end up being my interest, then I worry I'll only have a year to do what I actually end up doing.

I know I love solving problems with statistics and do want to continue developing my stats skills (there is even a good chance I'll go for a PhD in stats). Part of me thinks I should just focus on stats because I know I enjoy it and it'll transfer to whatever I want to do. The thing is though that as much as I love learning about stats and reading stats papers and so on, I don't want my research to be developing new statistical techniques in the abstract, I want to work with problems in the real world and develop statistical methods of attacking them. The thing I am most interested in now though is comp neuro, but I know very little about it currently. However, I worry that if I start taking neuro classes or even spend a summer doing neuro research and decide it's not what I want to do (which I basically did got econ already), then I'll have wasted the time that could have gone to learning mote stats.

My current plan is to dedicate all my coursework and formal research to stats for now (I have a position in a stats research group for this year and reading the papers they've put out it seems pretty lit!), and then do some independent reading of papers in other fields to decide if I am drawn to them​. While this is great, reading about something is very different from doing it so I fear it may not be possible to explore optimally without taking at least some risk. Thoughts on how I should navigate this?

Hello!

I'm a sophomore undergrad studying applied math and stats who is broadly interested in applied stats research. Essentially, I'm trying to figure out how to balance exploration to find what exactly I want to do research in with deep-diving in order to develop skills (and resume) for grad school.

What is scary to me is how little time it feels like I have. Freshman year I didn't do anything that is particularly useful for grad school. So I now basically have two years + two summers before grad school apps. If I spend sophomore year doing something that doesn't end up being my interest, then I worry I'll only have a year to do what I actually end up doing.

I know I love solving problems with statistics and do want to continue developing my stats skills (there is even a good chance I'll go for a PhD in stats). Part of me thinks I should just focus on stats because I know I enjoy it and it'll transfer to whatever I want to do. The thing is though that as much as I love learning about stats and reading stats papers and so on, I don't want my research to be developing new statistical techniques in the abstract, I want to work with problems in the real world and develop statistical methods of attacking them. The thing I am most interested in now though is comp neuro, but I know very little about it currently. However, I worry that if I start taking neuro classes or even spend a summer doing neuro research and decide it's not what I want to do (which I basically did got econ already), then I'll have wasted the time that could have gone to learning mote stats.

My current plan is to dedicate all my coursework and formal research to stats for now (I have a position in a stats research group for this year and reading the papers they've put out it seems pretty lit!), and then do some independent reading of papers in other fields to decide if I am drawn to them. While this is great, reading about something is very different from doing it so I fear it may not be possible to explore optimally without taking at least some risk. Thoughts on how I should navigate this?