What Major for Career in Data Science/Analytics?
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Anonymous
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My DS is becoming very interested in a career in the data science field. The colleges that he will likely choose between do not offer a "Data Science" major.
Should he major in Computer Science and minor in Statistics? Or should he major in Statistics and minor in Computer Science? Does anyone have any knowledge or career experience to share? |
Anonymous
| I'm a data analyst transitioning to management (unrelated to analytics or IT). I would not recommend this path, personally - it's one of the first fields that will be largely taken over by AI. The tech field is not really friendly to newbies anymore, IMO, and I don't see that changing. |
Anonymous
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When my son was searching for this a few years ago, he ended up applying to different majors at different schools. It could be statistics, applied math, computer science, data science. Some places had a data science minor that might be in statistics and/or CS.
The best program we found was at Virginia Tech -- Computational Modeling & Data Analytics. It's a cross-functional major bringing in classes/faculty from CS, Stats, Applied Math. He's a junior there now and having a great experience. https://data.science.vt.edu/programs/cmda.html FWIW, it has a fairly high acceptance rate (currently about 65%) and one of the university's highest starting salaries for graduates per VT outcome reports by major. |
Anonymous
| FWIW, OP, UVA has a new data science degree. https://datascience.virginia.edu/degrees/bsds |
Anonymous
LOL this is ridiculous. Layoffs are not only going to be in business analyst fields or comp science. Everything works off. the web currently. Every single company needs these people. BA cost way less than CS people do. And AI is not going to take this over. LOL |
Anonymous
CS minor Stats. Opens more job opportunities. Everyone one else on this thread reread OP's post. Clearly many of you can not read. |
Anonymous
I would expect AI will slow the growth in job demand but "being taken over by AI" is a huge overstatement. What is happening is people in the field will need to know how to use all the AI tools that are being developed. |
Anonymous
Adding to this...a lot of the CMDA students combine it with a CS minor (or math or stats minor) and they have the option to do a 5th year to get a CS master's degree. |
Anonymous
I have a BS and MS in Statistics and finished school in the early 1990s. I have worked in Data Science for the last 20 years. My first 10 were doing surveys. He should major in Statistics. I do not think there is a need for a comp sci minor. Check the curriculum at his desired schools. Many programs now have a lot of programming courses (R, etc.) in the curriculum. When I was in college and grad school, I learned theory-theory-theory!! There is much less theory now; the programs seem more applied. |
Anonymous
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I would go where his personal strengths/interests lie and lean into that.
One additional option that hasn't been put forth yet in this thread is one that is more content-area driven. That is you major in either CS, Stats, or a content area and then minor in CS, Stats or a content area. So like if you are interested in economic applications of data science, you could do CS+Econ (Econ would already have lots of stats). If you are interested in political/policy aspects of data science CS + PoliSci/gov. If you are interested in Business, healthcare etc. This really depends on how the majors are taught though. Like if stats is very math/theory vs. applied it might not work. If CS is very technical without a lot of application to contexts it might not work. I would talk to advisor/profs in each major and ask further. |
Anonymous
Not giving you a bad time, but why would your child consider a school that may not have the field of study related to career goals? |
Anonymous
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I work with data scientists and the best ones have physics backgrounds, or computational biology. I would choose a field like that rather than data science.
The person who posted about AI is right. We use a ton of AI and it is a threat to these jobs—not just in the future, in the next few years. |
Anonymous
NP but "data science" is a newer terminology so it's not unusual that a college would have a different major that is appropriate. Data science is basically applied statistics w/ programming. I'd go with statistics as the main major although prefer a program like VT's that is more integrated across all the disciplines that come into data science. |
Anonymous
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Operations Research
Operations Engineering Industrial Engineering Not all schools have these majors, but they tend to include flexibility to take the core analytic skills in different directions depending on the student's interests. To me, this is key as those interests will likely evolve over time, and I would want the opportunity to explore as I go. These majors also include some education re the human side of decision-making, data, analytics, and operations. Always good for those with interests beyond the technical side (not that there's anything wrong with that, but straight technical is not for everyone.) |
Anonymous
I work in the field and do not think it’s an overstatement. You need so many fewer people with AI. |