Data Science
Excited about self-driving cars and voice recognition?
Researching human behavior using social media?
The field of data science focuses on learning methods to extract meaning and the hidden truth from data. Sound interesting? It really is! It's a combination of techniques and theories from many fields including mathematics, computers science, statistics, machine learning, pattern recognition, communication studies and ethics.
Bloomsburg University's data science major equips you to draw conclusions from data, using knowledge of statistical inference, computational technology, data management skills and related theories. Study practical and scientific topics, learning how to carry out analyses of data through the full cycle of the investigative process.
Participate in a project-based capstone course that synthesizes the skills and knowledge learned in the various disciplines that encompass data science. BU’s Department of Mathematical and Digital Sciences is ready to help you become a data scientist.
What you will learn in data science
- Foundations in Mathematics, Statistics and Programming
- Data visualization, communication and interpretation skills
- Data management technologies including:
- Machine learning algorithms. For example, but not limited to:
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» Databases and Hadoop
» Cloud storage and cloud computing
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» k-nearest neighbors (kNN)
» Logistic regression, Ridge regression and LASSO
» Decision trees and Random Forests
» Naïve bayes
» Support vector machine (SVM)
» Convolutional neural network (cNN)
Data Science
Program Director
William Calhoun | wcalhoun@bloomu.edu
Ben Franklin Hall 215
570-389-4500
Program Structure
Demand is strong and rapidly growing
Data science is among the fastest growing careers in the job market, and data scientists earn high salaries. Become a business intelligence analyst, data mining engineer, or data architect, just to name a few potential job titles, according to simplilearn.com. Data scientists are a new generation of analytical data experts who have the theoretical background and technical skills to solve complex problems, as well as the curiosity to explore the significant new problems of the future.
Data science opening doors to real-world impact
Juliette Gudknecht is an analytical type who likes to solve problems.
Majoring in physics was an obvious and fitting choice for her at Bloomsburg University. Then she discovered how mathematics could be used to solve real-world problems. And her sights were set.
“I took one computer science class and fell in love with programming,” says Gudknecht, a mathematics and physics dual major who plans to pursue a master’s degree in data science and become a data scientist. “I’ve always been fascinated with science, specifically astronomy. I had the same mindset most do — that (astro) physics would be too hard to pursue, or that I was bad at math. I decided to just go for it and work hard.”
