Measures of Center

✔ Reflection 1
It's not too early to start thinking about what you want to do after high school!
Consider 1-3 jobs and/or college majors. What interests or talents do you have that support these careers?

Take a career quiz!

Take one (or both) of the following career quizzes to see what careers suit your interests and personal characteristics. 

✔ Discussion 1
Report and discuss your results from the career quiz(zes). 

College Degrees

The majority of careers involve getting a college degree. While not all careers require this, having one could improve your salary! Check out the following article and graph from NPR. Pick a college major that you're interested in. (Note: not all majors are labeled/included. If you can't find yours, just choose another, or "Other.")

✔ Table 1 
Record the percent of graduates in your chosen discipline from 2000 to 2011.

Measures of Center - Mean, Median, and Mode

✔ Notes 1

The center of a dataset is a number that represents the dataset as a whole, or can be assumed to be a typical entry in the dataset. There are three measures of center: mean, median, and mode.

Mean

Median

Mode
The mean, or average, is calculated by adding all of the data points together and then dividing by the number of data points.
The median is the middle of the dataset. To find the median, order the dataset from least to greatest. If there is an odd amount of data points, it will be the value in the middle; if there is an even amount of data points, it will be the average of the two values in the middle.
The mode is the value that occurs the most in a dataset. There can be no mode or more than one mode.

​Now you try!

✔ Calculation 1
Find the mean percent of college graduates in your chosen major.

​✔ Calculation 2
Order the dataset and find the median percent of college graduates in your chosen major.

✔ Calculation 3
Find the mode percent of college graduates in your chosen major, if one exists.

✔ Analysis 1
How has your chosen major's popularity changed over the last 11 years?

✔ Discussion 2
Share your results with a partner who analyzed data from a different college major. Compare and contrast the mean and median. Which major is more popular? Is the mean or the median a better measure of center?

What about a STEM career?

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) projected that science, technology, engineering, and math occupations will grow faster than average in coming years. The BLS also reported that workers in STEM careers earn a median salary of nearly $76,000. Most STEM careers currently have a low unemployment rate and high demand.

Read the following article on why STEM education is important for everyone. ​Would you consider a career in STEM? Why or why not?