The Master of Data Science (MDS) prepares students for careers as Data Scientists in high-technology industries, business, and government. The MDS is an interdisciplinary degree program that provides foundational knowledge in statistics, machine learning, and computer science. Students learn core knowledge in probability and statistics, programming, data management, data analysis and visualization, and interpretation of empirical results. During the final quarter, students participate in two capstone courses. A critical component of the generation and analysis of empirical data is the ability to document the methodology and design employed, provide interpretable results, and communicate the salient findings of the analysis to a broad audience.
The first capstone course consists of the development an empirically-driven solution to a real-world problem. The project will cover the full spectrum of the analytic process, ranging from data gathering, manipulation, visualization, analysis, and interpretation of results. The second capstone course focuses on scientific writing and communication for presenting analytic results of the capstone project to a broader audience. At the completion of this program, students will be able to obtain, manage, and analyze data from multiple sources and disciplines to yield empirically-driven solutions. Graduates will be well prepared to contribute to multi-disciplinary teams that rely on multiple types of data for guiding business and research decisions. They will be knowledgeable about the techniques for obtaining, cleaning and managing data, statistical and machine learning methodologies for analyzing data and building associative and predictive models, and communicating the impact of results to collaborators and teams.