{"id":37534,"date":"2015-07-27T09:13:54","date_gmt":"2015-07-27T13:13:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/?p=37534"},"modified":"2017-04-11T14:32:40","modified_gmt":"2017-04-11T18:32:40","slug":"statistical-standout","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/2015\/07\/27\/statistical-standout\/","title":{"rendered":"Statistical standout"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Whit<\/a>

Wright State statistics graduate Whit Alley ’15 landed a job with Nielsen Ratings after answering a question from interviewers that tripped up other candidates. (Photos by Will Jones)<\/p><\/div>\n

When Wright State statistics student Whit Alley got a high-five from interviewers at Nielsen Ratings, he was pretty sure a job offer was coming.<\/p>\n

Alley had just exposed a trick statistics question posed by the interviewers, something none of the other job candidates that day had done.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe interviewers asked me the question, and I smile a little bit because I\u2019m thinking back to my class,\u201d Alley recalled. \u201cI said, \u2018Actually, you can\u2019t say that. You have to ask the question in terms of odds, not probability.\u2019 They were trying to trip me up.\u201d<\/p>\n

The interviewers told Alley to make sure to tell his professor Harry Khamis that he had just hit a home run.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were proud of me,\u201d said Alley. \u201cIt\u2019s something that Dr. Khamis in his class has stressed so heavily. It\u2019s such a common mistake in the statistical field.\u201d<\/p>\n

Today, Alley \u2014 who graduated in May with his master\u2019s degree in statistics<\/a> \u2014 has that job with Nielsen Ratings, working at the company\u2019s Tampa, Florida, operations.<\/p>\n

Alley, who grew up in Virginia Beach, Virginia, describes himself as a \u201cbeach kid.\u201d His father works at Dominion Power, while his mother is a labor-and-delivery nurse at a naval hospital.<\/p>\n

After high school, Alley enrolled at Virginia Tech and studied computer science in hopes of making video games after he graduated.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut something with my brain just didn\u2019t click with the material,\u201d he recalled. \u201cI was failing a class; I had poor grades in another class. I started to freak out, so I called my parents and told them I was going to drop out of school. My mom said, \u2018No you\u2019re not. You\u2019re going to find something else you like to do.\u2019”<\/p>\n

So halfway through his sophomore year, Alley switched his major to statistics.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always been good at math, and I\u2019ve always viewed statistics as sort of an applied math,\u201d he said. \u201cEver since I switched majors, I\u2019ve been addicted to statistics. I can\u2019t get enough of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

A professor at Virginia Tech suggested Alley go to grad school, and Wright State\u2019s name popped up during an online search of master\u2019s degree statistics programs. Alley began working on his master\u2019s at Wright State in 2013 and also served as a graduate teaching assistant.<\/p>\n

\"Whit<\/a>

Whit Alley\u2019s long-term career goal is to work as a business or statistical analyst for a video game company in Silicon Valley.<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cWhen people ask me what I study in school, I say statistics and they roll their eyes,\u201d he said. \u201cBut it\u2019s really quite interesting because what statistics allows us to do is take real-world data and derive conclusions from it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Khamis, now professor emeritus of statistics, said Alley was such a successful student because of his love of \u2014 and enthusiasm for \u2014 the science of statistics.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that this \u2014 in addition to the hard work of studying the material and mastering it \u2014 is what extends a student from being technically solid to becoming exceptional,\u201d Khamis said.<\/p>\n

As graduation approached, Alley applied to Nielsen Ratings\u2019 Emerging Technologists program, which trains employees to become technical experts in their fields. And following the fateful interview, he had the job, which began June 6.<\/p>\n

Nielsen collects data on consumers \u2014 what they are watching on television, what they are looking at on the Internet, what they buy at grocery stores. The data is analyzed and interpreted, and the results sold to the producers.<\/p>\n

Working at Nielsen will enable Alley to become among the first to spot trends, such as which social media sites are the most popular.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey will train me in different areas of data science,\u201d he said. \u201cAfter the two-year program ends, I will be ready for a higher position in the company.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alley\u2019s long-term career goal is to work as a business or statistical analyst for a video game company in Silicon Valley.<\/p>\n

\u201cI still love to play video games,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s a big part of who I am.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Wright State statistics graduate Whit Alley ’15 scores a job with Nielsen Ratings after answering question from interviewers that tripped up other candidates. Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":37538,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[722,733,4299,2060,2068,715,746],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-academics","category-alumni","category-alumni-profile","category-graduate","category-mathematics-statistics","category-news","category-science-mathematics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37534"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37534\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37544,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37534\/revisions\/37544"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/webapp2.wright.edu\/web1\/newsroom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}