This first group of graduates is just the beginning.
“The vision for a broad new educational opportunity came to reality with the graduation of our first cohort of students,” said Bill Cresko, professor of biology and executive director of the Data Science Initiative, “I am so pleased by how prepared these students are for their future careers.”
Domain: Biology
Major: Data Science and Biology
Minor: Chemistry & Sociology
Hometown: Beaverton, Oregon
I chose a biology domain for the degree. It has helped connect my two majors and made double majoring and still graduating in four years feasible. I hope to apply my degree to environmental or conservation management. Data science is a really prevalent subject that relates to any career field because data is everywhere! Regardless of someone’s interest in computers, I highly recommend learning at least a little bit about how data is collected and used in society and how it may be relevant to you.
Domain: Marketing Analytics
Minor: Business Administration, Mathematics, and Entrepreneurship
Hometown: Portland, Oregon
I liked how all the professors did a great job with navigating brand-new classes and always asking questions from the ‘new’ students to improve it for the students that followed. The data science major looked interesting to me because of the mix of computer science, business, and math aspects, which were three of my strengths in school. Before being told that the data science program was coming to Oregon, I was taking a lot of time trying to decide if I wanted to continue with computer science or with business for my major path and which major I would enjoy more in the long run. Forbes also named data science as the ‘Sexiest Job of the 21st Century,’ which is obviously going to grab most peoples’ attention.
With a university-wide focus, data science undergraduate program teaches students core data science skills and applied those to a domain, or specialty area. Students currently have nine domains to choose from – accounting analytics, biology, earth science, economics, geography, linguistics, marketing analytics, physics, and sociology. Music technology will be available in fall 2022 and more domains are in the works.
The program is proving popular with majors and students outside the program. The introductory sequence, DSCI 101 and 102, is open to all students as general education course.
“The demand for the introductory sequence has become so large that starting in fall 2022, we are offering the two-quarter sequence (DSCI 101/102) twice: once in fall/winter and again in winter/spring. I expect that within a couple more years, we will be offering each of those courses every quarter of the academic year. We have also started to discuss developing asynchronous, online versions of those courses to cope with even greater demand,” said Joe Sventek, professor of computer and information science and data science program director.
Data scientists are essential players in nearly every industry, ranging from auto production to aerospace, healthcare and biotech, as well as investment banking, insurance, government, and even non-profit management. In fact, search “data science” on Indeed and you’ll see more than 10,000 opportunities around the country. Glassdoor, a leader in workforce analysis, estimates the starting salaries for data science jobs between $81k-149k – for entry-level jobs.
Lauren Ponisio, assistant professor of biology, teaches DSCI 101. “Seeing the first cohort of students graduate is an exciting first culmination of the data science …….
Source: https://around.uoregon.edu/content/uos-first-data-science-grads-ready-crunch-some-numbers