The STEM-designated master's program in Social Data Analytics in the Department of Sociology at Brown trains students in advanced techniques for data collection and analysis.
Careers in the 21st century increasingly place a premium on the ability to collect, process, analyze and interpret large-scale data on human attributes, preferences, attitudes, and behaviors and complex systems of human interactions. Such skills have concrete application and relevance to a wide variety of careers, including market research, program evaluation, policy work, advanced study in the social sciences and financial analysis.
The McKinsey Global Institute, a management consulting group, estimates that by 2018, the U.S. may face a 50-60 percent gap between the need for individuals who can analyze complex data and the supply of those with the training and skills to do so. The demand for data analysts requires professionals that are not only technically skilled, but also thoughtful about how best to use and interpret data.
The hallmarks of the program are focused methodological training in both quantitative and qualitative methods of data collection and analysis, with cores in spatial analysis and market research, classroom instruction by active and internationally renowned researchers, and individualized supervision of applied, hands-on data analytic research on a faculty project or with an off-campus organization.
Through this program, students will develop the pragmatic and logical skills that will prepare them for a career in social research, whether basic research (such as found in academia or research institutions) or applied (such as found in policy and market research). Students will put these newly developed skills to work, as they apply the techniques they learn to the analysis of actual data from the social sciences.
The master's program is ideal for early-career students who have an existing foundation in basic statistics and social science research and who desire more focused training in order to be not only prepared, but highly competitive, in acquiring careers in market or social research or as analysts at research and policy institutions.
While this degree is based in the Sociology Department, its value extends across disciplines. Many of the master's program faculty are associates of the Population Studies and Training Center (PSTC) at Brown, an interdisciplinary social science research and graduate training center. The Spatial Analysis courses in this program are taught by experts affiliated with the Spatial Structures in the Social Sciences (S4) Initiative; and several of the courses in market research are taught by staff affiliated with the undergraduate program in Business, Entrepreneurship and Organizations (BEO).