Purposes and Goals of the JPSM Junior Fellow Internship ProgramAs the United States moves closer and closer to a full information society, there are enormous career opportunities for those who have the knowledge and skills to design, collect, and analyze large scale data bases. All that the country knows about its population growth and migration, its health, criminal victimization, traffic patterns, educational performance, labor and job markets, prices of daily goods, agricultural production, air and water quality, and income distributions is based on sample surveys and censuses, as well as administrative data systems.
Staff who create and control these information systems literally determine what the country knows about itself. Their work leads to information that moves billions of dollars in the stock market, shapes public opinion about what challenges are faced by the country, and determines what issues state and Federal governments tackle. In addition, the staff of Federal statistical agencies have the assurance that their work is of public service. Their efforts help serve the country and the people of the United States, supplying the information that an informed electorate uses to shape its future.
The knowledge they need is not found in a single academic discipline, but rather a mix of substantive fields, including statistics, sociology, economics, epidemiology, and psychology. The work involves the use of statistics, to guide the design of data collection efforts and ways to summarize the information obtained; psychology, to construct survey questions so that they are comprehended as intended for the information system; and computer science, to aid in the collection, processing, and analysis of data.
Because the field is a mix of various traditional disciplines undergraduates rarely learn about this career path. The JPSM junior fellow program is a chance to learn about the career opportunity at a time when you can still shape your undergraduate curriculum.
A Highly Competitive Program for a Select FewThe JPSM junior fellow program is a cooperative venture of the Interagency Council on Statistical Policy and the
Joint Program in Survey Methodology. The Joint Program in Survey Methodology is funded primarily by the Interagency Council on Statistical Policy to provide graduate educational programs for the next generation of technical staff in the Federal Statistical System. Its graduate faculty devote their teaching careers to teaching the multidisciplinary tools that are needed for large scale surveys and censuses.
This is a unique internship experience that gives you a paid research assistantship, plus educational benefits that can expand your horizons of what you can do in your career.
For more information and how to apply please go to:
http://www.jpsm.umd.edu/fellows/
