Data Science (BS)
Majors
Data Science (BS)
Data science is a multi-disciplinary major combining mathematics, statistics, and computer science to organize, analyze, visualize, and extract useful information from data. Students gain skills for working with many different types of data, applying them in a capstone consulting course where they take a real analysis from beginning to end.
Where AI fits in
Modern AI is built on data, which makes data science the discipline behind the discipline: the quality, structure, and interpretation of data determine whether an AI system is trustworthy or misleading. Students learn the machine learning methods that power today's AI tools, but just as importantly, the statistical reasoning to know when a model's output can be trusted, and the principles of reproducible research that let others verify a result rather than take it on faith. Department faculty apply these methods directly — from representation learning techniques used in clinical AI research, to graph mining and reinforcement learning applied to large-scale human behavior data — grounding the major in real, published work rather than tools alone.
Students can pursue the major or a minor, and an Accelerated Bachelor's/Master's (4+1) pathway lets undergraduates earn a Master's in Data Science in five total years. Graduate students on the thesis track engage in research with faculty across data science, statistics, and computer science.