Rebecca Goldin
Professor of Mathematical Sciences / Director
George Mason University/STATS.org
George Mason University/STATS.org
Professor of Mathematical Sciences / Director
I research and teach mathematics at GMU, and I work to improve statistical literacy at STATS.org.
Two or three days a week, I'm teaching: on a typical teaching day, you might see me preparing for class, finishing some grading, updating a website, entering some information from an Excel chart, finalizing a lecture, then spending a few hours actually teaching a class. Other than that, I'll hold office hours, go to plenty of meetings, network with journalists and help them solve data / statistics-based problems, attend a lot of conferences, research new concepts, and write journalistic articles!
Here's the first step for middle school students
If you're interested in problem-solving and you tend to think outside of the box from a young age, go get yourself some Martin Gardner puzzle books and embrace your mathematical side. Be aware that your high school-level math classes aren't going to give you a very good view of what math can actually do, so once you get to college, take a class higher than calculus. Once you see the kinds of cool and unusual math taught at the college level, you'll know whether or not math is right for you.
"Girls aren't supposed to be this interested in math."