As a student at UMGC, you have been asked to join a fictional committee that will partner with new students in various programs of study. You will work alongside UMGC students from other programs to coordinate a weekend event that includes a tour of the campus, an informal meeting with students who are interested in your program, and a lunch-and-learn session with a panel of experts from various fields.

During the meeting with students who may be interested in your field of study, one student mentions that a program requirement is statistics. That student asks you why statistics is needed in this program. Do research online and create a thoughtful reply to the student, including a list of at least three specific ways statistics are used in your field. Include references from the online sources.

Classmate's answer: Statistics are a very important part of our everyday lives as it is part of human nature to do so. In an article I read from, "Our brain uses statistics to calculate confidence, make decisions", from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, they state that "Human brains are constantly processing data to make statistical assessments that translate into the feeling we call confidence. This feeling of confidence is central to decision making, and, despite ample evidence of human fallibility, the subjective feeling relies on objective calculations," (Cold Springs Harbor Laboratory, 2016).

With my major being Finance, I feel that there is going to be a bunch of statistical data that I am going to be providing, pulling from, and taking when I get into a career after my time in the U.S. Navy. Currently in my job I utilize statistics daily. I track different system failures, operational efficiency, parts life expectancy and Sailor productivity within the Tomahawk weapon system program that I oversee and help manage. Each week we update and help improve our program with this statistical data. It helps me identify which asset needs the most assistance at a given time due to their missions or current tasking. As tedious as it may seem, this is an important aspect of my job to ensure that we can help identify any shortfalls or gaps within our system. It also allows my leadership an easy way to know the status of this weapon to safeguard our nation and allow us to defend it if the time ever comes.

I also use statistics in another aspect of my daily life as I am a landlord. Tracking monthly expenses, housing prices and repairs has helped me predict possible pitfalls. The use of these data points has helped me create budget to solidify a profit to help further future purchases and investments. With this data from these items, I can forecast my expense margins, profit gains (or losses), rent rates and equity options that I have to help fuel my real estate adventure.

Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. "Our brain uses statistics to calculate confidence, make decisions." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 4 May 2016. (www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/05/160504142122.htm).

Make a substantive peer post.

Example: I agree that statistics is very important in our everyday lives. In fact, statistics plays a very crucial role in different aspects of life, often operating behind the scenes without many people realizing it. In education, statistics is used to assess student performance and identify improvement areas. The government uses statistics to understand economic development and changes in standards of living. When we say that the median income of a particular area is a certain amount of money, we are basically using statistics. Being in finance, I am sure you know that central banks use statistics to make monetary policy decisions based on unemployment figures, economic growth, and inflation. After learning how much we rely on statistics in our daily lives, I feel more encouraged to learn more about statistics and find useful applications in my job and daily life.