Setting the stage for data science: integration of data management skills in introductory and second courses in statistics

Statistics students need to develop the capacity to make sense of the staggering amount of information collected in our increasingly data-centered world. In her 2013 book, Rachel Schutt succinctly summarized the challenges she faced as she moved into the workforce: “It was clear to me pretty quickly that the stuff I was working on at Google was different than anything I had learned at school.” The same challenges are seen by students who enter the workforce as analysts. The widely cited McKinsey report called for the training of hundreds of thousands of workers with the skills to make sense of the rich and sophisticated data now available to make decisions (along with millions of new managers with the ability to comprehend these results). The disconnect between the complex analyses now demanded in industry and the instruction available in academia is a major challenge for the profession. Statistical educators play a key role in helping to prepare the next generation of statisticians and data scientists.