Program overview
Statistics is the discipline of collecting, organizing, analyzing data, and drawing conclusions from it. Simply put, it turns messy data into useful information. Core courses include probability theory, mathematical statistics, regression analysis, time series analysis, multivariate statistics, and fundamentals of machine learning. If you enjoy math, have a knack for numbers, and don't want to focus solely on pure theory, this major is a great fit. Chinese universities emphasize the applied side of statistics—for example, Renmin University of China, Peking University, and East China Normal University—with many courses incorporating real-world cases (like e-commerce user behavior analysis or financial risk modeling) so you can learn by doing. At the graduate level, you'll also dive into more advanced topics like statistical computing, Bayesian statistics, and big data technologies.