I feel sorry for your students if what you say is true. They just don't have much of a future.
In today's marketplace, with the almost unbeleivable whirlwind of Six Sigma Balck Belt (and related) activity out there in both manufacturing AND service organizations, anyone who doesn't understand and actively use statistics is essentially unemployable. Without the ability to make data-based decisions and the ability to improve processes and solve problems they will find themselves making business decisions blindfolded. If you think I'm talking about just a few companies or only technology companies, here is a who's who in the world of Six Sigma companies (sorry for the length). Note these include American Express, Amazon.com, GE Capital, Citigroup - all primarily service companies. Yes, I know many of these are not doing full blow programs, but the statistical skills are still recognized, active, and valued. In these companies it isn't statisticians who are doing the statistics, the data analyses, and interpreting the data, its the engineers, analysts, managers, etc. These days the statisticians are too busy teaching and consulting. 3M Abacus Technology Corporation Acuity Brands Alcoa Allegheny Technologies Amazon.com American Express Ametek Arcelik Asea Brown Boveri Atlantic Envelope Company Australian Food Corporation Avery Dennison BAE Systems Bank of America Baxter Healthcare BBA Nonwovens Bendix Bharat Heavy Electricals Black & Decker Boeing Bombardier Bosch Burlington Industries Canon Carlson Companies Caterpiller Ceridian Chromalloy Citigroup City of Fort Wayne, Indiana CNH Global Cognis Corporation ComauPico Commonwealth Health Corporation Compaq Computer Corporation Control Center, LLC Cooper Cameron Corporation Cooper Standard Automotive Cott Corporation Crane CSX Cummins Engine Company Cytec-Fiberite Inc. DaimlerChrysler Corporation Danaher Corporation Datacard Corporation Datastream Systems, Inc. Dell Computer Delphi Automotive Systems Delta Airlines Digital Electronics Dow Chemical DuPont DuPont Dow Elastomers L.L.C. Dura Automotive Systems Dynamic Controls Limited Eastman Kodak Eaton Corporation Eli Lilly and Company Enginetics Corporation Ericsson Fairchild Fasteners Fasson Canada First Data Corporation Flextronics International Ford Motor Company Ford Financial Freudenberg Galvak Gates Group, The Gateway GenCorp General Electric GlaxoSmithKline Gulf States Paper Corporation Hellenic Aerospace Industries Heller Financial Inc. Hewlett Packard Finance Operations Hitachi Home Depot Honda Honeywell Hoover Company Huntsman Corporation IBM IMI Norgren IMC Global International Paper International Truck and Engine Company Invensys ITT Industries Jaguar JDS Uniphase Corporation JEA John Deere Johnson & Johnson Johnson Controls JP Morgan Chase Kaiser Aluminum Kodak Kohler Company KPMG Kristeel Shinwa Industries Ltd. Landis Gardner Lear Corporation LG Electronics Lithonia Lighting Lockheed Martin Mabe Magnetek Maple Leaf Foods Marconi Maytag McKessonHBOC Mead Meridian Automotive Systems Motorola Mount Carmel Health System NCR Corporation Nokia Noranda Northrup Grumman Corporation NovaStar Mortgage, Inc. Nylex Polymer Products Oasis Corporation Owens Corning PACCAR Pacific Scientific PerkinElmer Pilkington Libbey-Owens-Ford Polaroid Polyclad Technologies PraxAir Quest Diagnostics Raytheon Rexam Beverage Can Corporation Riverwood International Roche Diagnostics Rohm and Haas Company RR Donnelley & Sons Samsung SAMTEL Schenectady International SBS Technologies, Inc. Seagate Technology Sear, Roebuck & Company Service Master Shimano Siemens Solar Turbines Inc. Solectron Telecommunications Sonoco Sony Space Systems Loral Starwood Hotels and Resorts Sun Microsystems Sunsweet Growers, Inc. Tata Chemicals Limited Tata Steel Temasek Polytechnic Tenneco Automotive Texas Instruments Textron TIMET TIMEX Toshiba Travel Impressions Unifi Inc. Union Pacific Railroad UOP Vision Systems Fire & Security Visteon Corporation Volvo Trucks Vulcan Materials Company Vytra Health Plans Walbro Engine Management Wells Fargo Whirlpool Corporation Wipro Technologies Woodward W.C. Bradley Xerox Corporation Zep Chemicals ZF Lemforder "Gus Gassmann" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message [EMAIL PROTECTED]">news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]... > "A.J. Rossini" wrote: > > > >>>>> "k" == kenmlin <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > > > k> Sorry I pissed everyone off. My argument is more relevant to > > k> teaching introductory statistics course to non-stat majors who > > k> might not have access to stat packages at their own department > > k> or when they leave school. I felt that teaching Excel is > > k> beneficial in a sense that they might actually be able to use > > k> what they learned since Excel's more readily available. I also > > k> found that I had next to no time to cover the software while I > > k> was teaching intro stat course. > > > > k> I understand that it's very important for many of you to teach > > k> stat package because it's what you are familiar with and you > > k> have access to it. (The stat dept I belonged to didn't have > > k> the budget for a decent computer lab so I always had to come up > > k> with ways to work around with the lack of resources.) I > > k> apologize for being practical. I myself is now a SAS > > k> professional but I think differently if I am teaching. > > > > There are plenty of reasonable FREE packages, ViSta and R come to > > mind. > > That's all fine and good, but I can see kenmlin's point. Yes, excel is lousy > at statistics, yes, their attitude towards errors in the software stinks, and, > yes, there are real statistical packages available for students at little or no > > cost. However, in a business school I have absolutely no illusion that any > of my students will ever be statisticians. They will be consumers of > statistics, > and they will occasionally produce simple statistics themselves. I teach the > use of minitab in my classes, by I feel that I would be remiss if I didn't > also teach them how to use excel (and warn them about potential pitfalls), > since there is no reason to suspect that they will have acess to a statistical > package once they are out in the workforce. > ================================================================= Instructions for joining and leaving this list, remarks about the problem of INAPPROPRIATE MESSAGES, and archives are available at http://jse.stat.ncsu.edu/ =================================================================
