Experiencing the complexity of reality before graduation

Abstract

The curriculum for undergraduate students offers not only basic statistics courses but also optional courses regarding statistical methods for times series, modelling, epidemiology, econometrics and other topics potentially useful in a statistician’s career. This means that the students believe that they will get a comprehensive statistical toolbox for solving a variety of real life problems after graduation. But can they use the tools in a complex reality? The aim is to present the use of inter-disciplinary statistical problem solving courses for introducing the complexity of reality to statistics students before graduation. Experiences of the discordance between students’ theoretical and practical skills regarding statistical description, analysis and understanding will be given.