Although the school’s official homecoming was a month prior, the American Statistical Association Student Chapter at The George Washington (GW) University hosted a homecoming redux of sorts on March 3, welcoming back five statistics and biostatistics alumni for a two-hour career panel so they could share their insights on entering the job market as newly minted graduates.
Roughly 50 graduate students from the statistics, biostatistics, and data science programs attended the event headlined by five alumni speakers: Cheung Li, National Cancer Institute; Wayne Woo, GlaxoSmithKline Vaccines; Guoxi Yan, American Society for Engineering Education; Yuqing Lu, Kaiser Permanente; and Haijun Wang, Arkansas Children’s Hospital. They shared tips on writing résumés, preparing for interviews, and burnishing critical soft skills such as teamwork and effective communication. Afterward, the panelists “loosened their ties” and enjoyed pizza, drinks, and casual conversation with students during the closing networking hour.
“We are privileged to have such fantastic alumni willing to give back to the students following in their footsteps,” noted event organizer Xiaoyan Yin. “That, combined with assistance of my team members—Bo Ye, Jialu Wang, and Tian Pei—and the support of the ASA national organization and the GW Statistics Department, were instrumental to the event’s success.” Chapter Co-Presidents Xiaoyu Zhai and Arnold Saunders agreed. They said these events drive home the value of ASA membership to students and pulling together a large event like this is a clinic in leadership skills that can’t be picked up in a classroom.
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