I posted a while ago about worries over my job and they are increasing.
This is a long read, apologies.
I think the role i currently do at work is beyond my level of understanding in regards to statistics
The company did say that they had problems finding anyone to meet 3 criteria that the job required and felt i was most suitable: biological degree/farming knowledge/dealing with large datasets
My CV was honest and i expressed my limitations and strengths in the interview.
Up until now i have many been doing/learning vba from scratch which is fine, to amalgamate different messy datasets, im happy and progressing, line manager is happy, all good.
the second step is stats. The data set in excel has variables to column GA (both independent Xs and dependent Ys)
basically the company want to find any underlying patterns in the data. The data is far from perfect, lots of correlated variables and wasnt produced originally with this purpose in mind
the stats package is expansive to say the least and i dont think i have a good enough stats knowledge to use this. I am dubious about what has been done before also.
Ie, chuck some variables into PCA, press go,
accept what PCA churns out in respect to removing correlated variables..
feed new variables into model creation
dont worry about this box, or this, press run
run models, mainly non linear regression partition based trees,
is what comes out good? (r^2 etc etc)
ok, this model explains this much variation
its not this easy i know and here in lies the problem. I know the way i have been introduced to the software etc is too simple, but to do it right when there is no simple right answer.
I feel it is beyond me and seems to require a degree, or at least some sort of stats education at degree level beyond what i have done. Im not sure if i can teach myself this level of stats. If it was pure maths where there is more likely to be a right answer i could figure it out, but stats is a different beast
to sum up
basically im asking if i have a chance at this (getting my head around stats properly) without a stats degree if i try and teach myself what i need?
or
do i need to start now on something else (after work training) in something else so if i am released at some point i have a fall back ..was looking at finance/accounting to which a forum member has been helpful
This is a long read, apologies.
I think the role i currently do at work is beyond my level of understanding in regards to statistics
The company did say that they had problems finding anyone to meet 3 criteria that the job required and felt i was most suitable: biological degree/farming knowledge/dealing with large datasets
My CV was honest and i expressed my limitations and strengths in the interview.
Up until now i have many been doing/learning vba from scratch which is fine, to amalgamate different messy datasets, im happy and progressing, line manager is happy, all good.
the second step is stats. The data set in excel has variables to column GA (both independent Xs and dependent Ys)
basically the company want to find any underlying patterns in the data. The data is far from perfect, lots of correlated variables and wasnt produced originally with this purpose in mind
the stats package is expansive to say the least and i dont think i have a good enough stats knowledge to use this. I am dubious about what has been done before also.
Ie, chuck some variables into PCA, press go,
accept what PCA churns out in respect to removing correlated variables..
feed new variables into model creation
dont worry about this box, or this, press run
run models, mainly non linear regression partition based trees,
is what comes out good? (r^2 etc etc)
ok, this model explains this much variation
its not this easy i know and here in lies the problem. I know the way i have been introduced to the software etc is too simple, but to do it right when there is no simple right answer.
I feel it is beyond me and seems to require a degree, or at least some sort of stats education at degree level beyond what i have done. Im not sure if i can teach myself this level of stats. If it was pure maths where there is more likely to be a right answer i could figure it out, but stats is a different beast
to sum up
basically im asking if i have a chance at this (getting my head around stats properly) without a stats degree if i try and teach myself what i need?
or
do i need to start now on something else (after work training) in something else so if i am released at some point i have a fall back ..was looking at finance/accounting to which a forum member has been helpful