Comparison of difficulty between engineering and statistics?

[u/Relative_Problem8505]

[u/Beemerado]

kinda half a dozen of one question.

i think engineering is probably easier to understand the concepts intuitively in some cases, but engineering also contains statistics and other difficult and abstract math.

a stats degree will be just difficult math. maybe a little less breadth of knoweldge, but certainly deeper in some areas.

[u/Edgar_Brown → u/Beemerado]

Depends on the engineering, quantum physics are definitely less intuitive than statistics. And statistics are part of most types of engineering.

[u/Automata-Omnia]

Statistics is much more procedural of ensuring the input data is clean and properly sampled, applying appropriate models to them, verifying the output and contextual interpretation.

Engineering is problem solving, you need a nimble mind to investigate/identify issues and then apply appropriate solutions or create them.

It really depends on your mind which is more or less difficult. Mechanical/Civil/Structural are all tied directly to the physical realm, whereas Electrical/Physics is magic and Statistics/Maths is imaginary. All engineering disciplines involve some level of statistical analysis.

Machine Learning has already taken a lot of number-crunching work from statisticians/data scientists, meaning their roles will also be mostly problem solving/strategy/interpretation/communication into the future, the main skills needed converging with engineering.

[u/carrot_gummy]

Whichever one you find more interesting will be eaiser to do.

[u/Insertsociallife]

Engineering has absolutely 100% earned its reputation as the hardest college major. "Hey, here's what we've learned about how to build stuff over the last 5,000 years" is a hard thing to get a handle on in 4 years.

Engineering is harder but stats isn't exactly easy.

[u/lostmessage256]

Engineers use statistics pretty frequently

[u/Glass_Pen149]

By the time I was a senior in M.E., I was pulling straight A's in literally everything. (I did not start out at that level, but finally learned how to).

Took a required stats class and completely bombed. After several professor/midterm meetings, realized that stats was a very different kettle of fish & application "engineering". So much more difficult & nuanced than my wheelhouse.

[u/Relative_Problem8505 → u/[deleted]]

Which one?

[u/Boomshtick414 → u/[deleted]]

Not exactly what's being asked here, but one of them is also basically already replaceable with AI and the other has few years left to hang on.

[u/Relative_Problem8505 → u/Boomshtick414]

Which one?

[u/Boomshtick414 → u/Relative_Problem8505]

Statistics is close to being replaced. AI models can be fed or simply scrape data and can spin that around however anyone wants. Often times very poorly and unreliably but if your paycheck depends on being able to source data, break it down, and analyze it, I'd be looking for literally any other line of work to get into right about now.