Which is harder? Statistics or Calculus?

Statistics VS Calculus: Which offers the hardest (and most worth while) classes?

What is the hardest class you have taken? For me, it was Calculus III, Stochastic Modeling, or Mathematical Statistics.

Here is what you will get out of this article:

• The difference between the two

• When you should focus on one or the other

• When you should focus on both

What is Statistics?

Statistics is the act of taking in a sample of data from a population and making inferences about the population using that sample (more or less). Though 'Statistical Concepts' show up in data science and analysis, manufacturing, business, government, sports, and more.

What is Calculus?

Calculus is most simply the study of rate of change. A derivative is just how quick something is accelerating (rate of change). An integral is used to show displacement, area, volume, or even 'net change'. Calculus is used in a wide variety of applications. Statistics, almost all physical sciences, engineering, economics, and business (just to name a few)

OK. What's the point?

Now that you know the difference (hopefully this isn't new), we can talk about when you should focus on one, the other, or both.

Focus on Calculus when…

Calculus should be your main focus early on in school if you are in engineering, math, computer science, or Statistics. As a statistics major, I didn’t follow this advice and it put me behind. If I could do it all over again, I would have taken up until Calculus II before taking higher level Statistics class. A lot of the upper level courses in the above topics WILL use calculus concepts.

Focus on Statistics when…

Statistics should be your focus (as a Statistics Major) after you have a grounding in calculus. ALL of your upper level probability classes will most definitely use calculus concepts. I would also recommend if you are brand new to statistics, focus on intro level statistics material before or during learning calculus.

Focus on BOTH when…

You should focus on both Statistics and Calculus at the same time if you need to catch up in school (like I did). This is NOT the path I would recommend. Upper level statistics courses are not easy without a grounding in calculus. Sometimes, schools will even require you to have passed all calculus courses before taking upper level Statistics courses.

Hopefully this helps! As always if you want more statistics content, watch my latest video on the YouTube channel!