XL Files
Contributing Editor Xiao-Li Meng writes:
Other than zero, I have a hard time coming up with an estimate for the number of readers of my XL-Files of July 2013 who still recall the Harvard Horizons program, which trains students to present a five-minute TED-style talk on their research. But the…
Xiao-Li Meng writes:
Boston’s reputation of being a hub of universities was elevated recently by the inaugural HUBweek (Hospital, University and Business), which kicked off with a forum led by Michael Sandel, the “rockstar moralist.” Amid an array of thought-provoking questions, Sandel asked if the audience would feel comfortable letting…
Xiao-Li Meng writes:
“I keep saying that the sexy job in the next 10 years will be statisticians.” This prediction by Professor Hal Varian in January 2009 (in The McKinsey Quarterly) has been quoted so frequently that if I were him, I’d have been worried whether I’d be remembered for…
Xiao-Li Meng gives some advice to a student in a conundrum.
After the final exam of my first Gen. Ed. course, Real-life Statistics: Your Chance for Happiness (or Misery), a student insisted on seeing me. Given the course title, I thought I would hear about his misery—likely about the…
Xiao-Li Meng writes:
Some events in life repeat, although not necessarily in an i.i.d.* fashion. For some unlucky or lucky ones (see my last XL-Files) this has been a season of repeated storms and flu. A trip to London had to be canceled because the flu bug, with her…