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All of us have received well wishes throughout our life for various special occasions.”May all your dreams come true” is one of the most popular greetings of all time. As the French author, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry once said: “A dream without a plan is just a wish”. Thus, receiving hundreds of well-wishes or praying to God is not going to “make your dreams come true” unless you know your game. Pursuing higher education and/or a well-paid career is indeed a “dream” of all the graduates. With the aim of playing our role in contributing to the planning and preparation for those dreams, the Statistics Society of Department of Statistics in the University of Sri Jayewardenepura held an online panel discussion and a Q&A session themed “Higher Education to Build a Brighter Career” from 9.30 AM onwards on Sunday, the 31st of May 2020.

The live session was graced virtually by five panelists from academia as well as industry. The first panelist was our very own, Dr. Rajitha Silva who is a Ph.D. holder from Simon Fraser University, Canada, and a Senior Lecturer of the Department of Statistics, University of Sri Jayewardenepura. Despite the differences of time zones Dr. Harsha Perera, who is a Faculty member as well as a Ph.D. holder from the Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science, Simon Fraser University, Canada joined us as another panelist from academia. Dr. D. K. Karunaratne, who is a Ph.D. holder from the University of South Florida, USA, and an individual contributor in Intel Corporation also joined us all the way from the USA. Another panelist who has had a sound exposure to the industry as an R&D Engineer in Singapore and France, Mr. Lasith Haputhanthri also joined us all the way from Canada. He is a Master holder of the National University of Singapore and currently works as a Software Engineer for Amazon. Last but not least, our final panelist was yet another individual with significant industrial exposure in Sri Lanka as well as abroad, Mr. Praneeth Weerasekara who is a Master Holder in Nanotechnology and currently works for Twinery in Sri Lanka.

The panel discussion had 65 active participants who were either students or graduates from the University of Sri Jayewardenepura and other Universities coming from various study areas in STEM. Even Though the panel discussion was organized in such short notice, we were truly astonished by the number of participants from all over Sri Lanka.

We are humbled to say that we had quite an interactive as well as informative 2 hour-long session. Firstly, we discussed different stages of the application process for graduate studies in Sri Lanka as well as abroad. Every panelist added information and opinions from their perspective. A few of the students raised questions relating to that matter and the session turned out to be a very friendly casual discussion without even realizing it. Some conflicts of ideas and misconceptions of our students were smoothly and effectively clarified by the panelists. They elaborated more about different fields of study which would lead to prosperous career paths through the eyes of both academia and industry. Moreover, we discussed different aspects to consider when pursuing graduate studies abroad such as scholarships, financial situation, moving with dependents, pathways to obtaining permanent residency (PR) which eventually lead to obtaining citizenship, applying for vacancies after graduate studies and many more timely topics beneficial for our students to plan ahead. Panelists were humble enough to share their personal experiences of the mistakes they made along the way and how they overcame them. I am pretty sure it made a huge impact on fellow students including me.

We said our goodbyes after a successful online panel discussion and Q&A session. For the formalities, we distributed a feedback form among the participants and were truly astonished by the positive feedback and constructive criticism directed by them. Each and every feedback exemplified that the effort and time we put together were not in vain and gave us immense self-satisfaction for initiating this event as the Statistics Society of Department of Statistics at the University of Sri Jayewardenepura.

As the co-organizers of the event, I (Ms. Uthmani Ambawattage) and my fellow batchmate Ms. Kalpani Perera had quite a hustle in promoting the event, structuring questions to be discussed covering all areas of interest, responding to potential participants and collecting their own questions to be added, formally keeping in touch with panelists and participants through email and many more. Our team spirit and fulfilling shared responsibilities effectively made the organizing process less stressful for both of us. It was truly a privilege to work with Ms. Kalpani Perera as co-organizers of the event. We must remind our beloved Faculty member Dr. Rajitha Silva who is also the Senior Treasurer of the Statistics Society with gratitude for being the most supportive and friendly mentor he was. His guidance and volunteering to take the responsibility of communicating with the other panelists indeed made it possible to organize this timely event in such a short period of time. Last but not least, Mr. Janith Wanniarachchi who contributed as the presenter of the session.

On behalf of the Statistics Society, I thank all the participants and well wishes for reminding us about the importance of organizing such events as a student-lead society. We hope we did our part in making your “dreams” come true.

Written by :Uthmani Ambawattage,
Co-organizer
Panel Discussion and Q&A Session on “ Higher Education to Build a Brighter Career”

 

Important Links :

Feedback from the participants

Report on the composition of participants

Facebook page of the Statistics Society

 

Postgraduate Certificate in Applied Statistics (2020)

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Applications are invited from interested candidates for the Postgraduate Certificate in Applied Statistics offered by the Department of Statistics, University of Sri Jayewardenepura. This program has been designed to provide a basic knowledge in Applied Statistics for professionals from various fields. Those who complete the program successfully will be capable of solving statistical problems arising in practical situations in a broad range of fields.

The Postgraduate Certificate program in Applied Statistics provides (a) essential theoretical knowledge in Statistics, (b) an opportunity for graduates who have not studied Statistics to learn Statistics, (c) knowledge in applications of Statistics and training in data analysis required by graduate employees in various fields, and (d) an opportunity for graduate employees to gain higher education qualifications required for their promotions and career development.

Program Structure (2020 intake):

Semesters	Course Code	Course Name	Credit Value	Status (Core /Optional)
1	STA 501 1.0 STA 502 2.0 STA 503 1.0 STA 504 2.0 STA 505 2.0 STA 506 2.0	Descriptive Statistics Probability and Distribution Theory Sampling Techniques Statistical Inference Medical Statistics Linear Regression Analysis	1.0 2.0 1.0 2.0 2.0 2.0	Core Core Core Core Core Core
2	STA 507 1.0 STA 508 1.0 STA 509 2.0 STA 510 2.0 STA 511 2.0 STA 512 2.0	Nonparametric Statistics Industrial Statistics Introduction to Design and Analysis of Experiments Categorical Data Analysis Applied Multivariate Analysis Data Analysis	1.0 1.0 2.0 2.0 2.0 2.0	Core Core Core Core Core Core

Postgraduate Certificate: Total number of lecture hours is 300 hours. Total number of credits is 20. All the courses are core courses.

 

Minimum Admission Requirements:

• A Bachelor’s Degree in any field of study from a recognized university OR
• An equivalent qualification accepted by the Senate of the University of Sri Jayewardenepura.

Applications:

Click here to download the e-application form.

Pay the application fee of Rs. 1,000/- to account number 053010006731 through any People’s Bank branch.

Please email scanned copies of the completed application form, the certified copy of your transcript and the bank payment receipt to

PGCertAppStatUSJ@gmail.com

Also, please send via post the completed application form and a certified copy of your transcript along with one of the bank payment receipts to

Department of Statistics, Faculty of Applied Sciences, University of Sri Jayewardenepura.

The program will be offered only if at least 20 candidates are registered.

 

Closing date of applications: 03rd of July, 2020

Duration: One (01) year

Course Fee: Rs. 130,000/-

In addition, a library fee and a registration fee should be payable at the time of registration.

 

All lectures will be conducted using online teaching methods. However, when the university reopens for students, discussions, practical classes, oral presentations, exams etc. will be conducted in the University premises during the weekend.

Upon successful completion of the program, you will be eligible to apply for the MSc program in Applied Statistics offered by the Department of Statistics with the fulfillment of at least one of the following:

• A Bachelor’s Degree from any field of study with 10 credits in Statistics and/or a related field from a recognized university.
• At least one year working experience in a related field.

 

 

Tentative commencement: August, 2020

For further information

Dr. Chathuri Jayasinghe
Coordinator – postgraduate program in Applied Statistics,
Department of Statistics,
University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Gangodawila, Nugegoda

Email: chathuri@sjp.ac.lk

Erasmus+ DS&AI project was started in 2018 for the main purpose of introducing a novel Master’s degree program in Data Science and Artificial Intelligence in Asia with the mission of bringing European-standard advanced education to Asia. Nine Asian universities, three European universities and four European companies are involved in the above project.

As a part of the project, a team of four academics (Mr. DDA Gamini, Dr. TGI Fernando, Dr. Chitraka Wickramarachchi & Dr. RM Silva) from the Department of Computer Science and the Department of Statistics participated in a study visit to Greece and the Netherlands with primary objective of designing curriculum, together with other partner universities, for the Master’s degree program in Data Science and Artificial Intelligence.

In parallel to the Masters degree program in Data Science and Artificial Intelligence, professional training courses are going to be offered by each partner university targeting the people from the industry. In order to design and offer these professional courses at the University of Sri Jayewardenepura, we will be organizing an awareness program called “Info Days” inviting the prospective candidates from the industry.  

For more details, please go to this link: https://science.sjp.ac.lk/sta/dsai/