Data Science

Major

How we work

1. We are an interdisciplinary program. Our students have very diverse interests, and data science is a reflection of that. The program covers areas in mathematics, computer science, and statistics; all while being in tune with ethical issues and fields of application. We address human impacts as well as numbers. Problems in data science require different modes of thinking to solve, which is very characteristic of a liberal arts education.
2. We teach a program that is in high demand. Data science is becoming increasingly popular, and can lead to plentiful career opportunities that are personally and financially rewarding. We teach our students how to address a wide range of questions with different data sets, which can lead to careers in medical research, sports analytics, marketing, finance, environmental analysis, political research, and many others.
3. Our program attracts students from a list of diverse studies. Students can participate in our data science program in conjunction with several different majors and minors on campus. Some examples include computer science, environmental studies, political science, economics, business, and areas of the humanities. Data science is so diverse because the data worked with does not always have to be numbers and can include words, image data, and sounds. An example is the problem of detecting spam emails using the presence of certain key words associated with known spam.
4. Our students can learn in and outside of the classroom. While the data science program has a diverse faculty to teach our students in the classroom, there will be plenty of opportunities for internships and experiences in the community away from Knox. Those opportunities can be found, for example,  in the business and finance sectors in forecasting market activity or classifying industries and institutions in financial difficulty, or in the marketing field in identifying potential customers and their preferred purchases.