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I.M. Johnstone 155The NCES data shows almost three times as many Master’s degrees inStatistics for 2009–10 as Bachelor’s degrees (1602 versus 593). This issignificant, and may in part reflect the undercount just cited. However, afocus on the Bachelor’s level still seems important, as this is seen as theflagship degree at many institutions.2. There have always been many routes to a career in statistics. For a mathematicallyinclined student, it often used to be said that an undergraduatefocus on statistics was too narrow, and that a broad training in mathematicswas a better beginning. My own department did not offer anundergraduate degree in statistics for this reason.In 2013, it seems that young people who like data and mathematics shouldstudy at least computing, mathematics, and statistics (the order is alphabetical)and that Statistics Departments might design and promote majorsthat encourage that breadth.3. An Academic Dean spends a lot of time reading letters of evaluation ofteaching, research, etc. In my own experience, the most consistently outstandingstudent letters about teaching were in philosophy. Why? Here isa conjecture rather than an explanation: in the US, philosophy is not ahigh school subject — and there is no AP exam — and so its professorshave to “start from scratch” in winning converts to the philosophy major.They appear to do this by dint of exemplary teaching.What is the relevance of this to statistics? I’m not sure, but statisticslikewise has not traditionally been a high school subject (this is changing,as the advent of AP statistics shows), and it seems that statisticians inresearch universities have not in the past felt the same sense of missionabout recruiting to an undergraduate major in statistics.4. These are data aggregated at a national level, and — perhaps — pointto a national phenomenon. The good news is that there are outstandingexamples of individual departments promoting and growing statisticsmajors.AcknowledgementsThanks to Robert Gould, Nicholas Horton, and Steve Pierson for commentson an earlier draft. After much procrastination, this short piece was writtenwhile not preparing a conference talk, in conformance with the Ig NobelPrize winning article by Perry (1996). The title echoes that of the sometimesforgotten classic Schwed Jr. (1940), without any other claimed similarity.