It was August of 2014. I was just beginning the first semester of my senior year at the University of Georgia. As a mathematics and statistics double major, I had managed to avoid writing for the large part of three years, a feat of which I was rather proud. A few months prior, my advisor, Christine (or Chris) Franklin – one of the sweetest people you could ever meet – had just communicated to me that I would need to take one more writing course to graduate with my statistics degree. The course, Statistics 5010, essentially acts to bridge the gap between two seemingly separate fields: writing and statistics. It was required for my major and I did not want to let Chris down, so I registered for the year-long writing course. After all, what worth does a good statistician hold if he is unable to communicate his findings?
I walked into the UGA Statistics Building, room 306 on that hot August afternoon: the first day of my undergraduate capstone course. A few more mathematics and statistics courses, a couple PE’s, and I was done – oh, and yes, this atypical writing intensive course, Statistics 5010. A few months into this school year, I not only noticed improvements in my writing, but I also noticed that I was enjoying writing, perhaps for the first time in my life. I could see improvements in my ability to communicate statistical concepts, especially client-based communication. I found myself looking forward to coming to class and working on the statistics-related writing assignments presented in this class. I looked at this class as an escape from my normal mathematical drumming.
I realize now that my enjoyment for this course and its assignments stemmed from the fact that my professors (Dr. Lazar and Dr. Wang) and my TA (Alex Lyford) were able to impart a notion with which I was previously unfamiliar: writing as a mode of learning. In this class, we were using writing-based assignments to describe statistical procedures we were discussing in class; finally, I was writing about topics I was interested in learning more about. To this point in my undergraduate career, my previous writing experiences had also been research-based, but not research that I wanted to engage in.
Fast forward 3 years from that hot August afternoon in 2014. Again, I am entering the UGA Statistics Building, room 306 for Statistics 5010. This time, however, I am no longer a student, but a WIP TA – my journey has come full-circle. Although my perspective has changed, I still retain that familiar excitement with this course, and once again, I find myself using it as an escape from the norm. Just as was done onto me, I try to instill this notion of the use of writing as a mode of learning onto my students. I believe this to be the one of the most important writing intensive concepts. As an attempt to instill this notion, we often have our students describe complex statistical procedures in a manner that can be understood by someone outside of our discipline.
Actively witnessing improvements in their writing has been one of the most rewarding experiences in my three years in the graduate program.
To this point, I have enjoyed communicating with and getting to know each of my students. Moreover, actively witnessing improvements in their writing has been one of the most rewarding experiences in my three years in the graduate program. Being a WIP TA is demanding in any discipline; I believe it to be particularly difficult in a mathematical field where students’ writing abilities range drastically from one student to the next. If there is one piece of advice I would like to express to future WIP TAs, it would be this: Do not underestimate the impact you can have on your students – my experiences in this course as a student have led me down the road I am on today, and I am especially thankful to my past Statistics 5010 teaching team for positively impacting my growth as a statistical communicator. I am hopeful that our current Statistics 5010 teaching team can have a similar positive impact on this year’s students.