By Daniel Atkinson, Reporter
Edited by Peighton Williamson, Editor
Berry College embraces the future with the creation of its new Data Science Major for the Fall 2023 Semester.
The Data Science major allows students to gain the skills, knowledge, and experience to become ready to fill the need for data-savvy professionals.
Nadeem Abdul Hamid, Associate Professor of Math and Computer Science, discussed the origin of the major.
“Data science has been a big thing everywhere in the last five years,” Hamid said. “Here at Berry, we were already in the process of setting up a new computer science major, and we also had some faculty in business who had some background in analytics. We spent a year or so discussing possibilities, and that’s where we converged on getting the Data Science major set up.”
The major is interdisciplinary. It focuses on mathematics, programming, machine learning, and data visualization. Students will gain an understanding of data and how applies to different fields.
Hamid also answered questions about what skills students will learn in the major.
“Students learn software development skills, the computing side,” Hamid said. “They’ll learn how to think mathematically about the algorithms and the processes people use to analyze data, so they’ll learn those mathematical skills.
They’ll also learn skills to visualize data and explain it to people, how to make it tell a story.”
The program emphasizes practical applications, allowing students to work on real-world projects and bridging the gap between classrooms and professional practice. Enabling students to have hands-on experience, students will learn to create, manage, use, and effectively visualize data.
Garner Cochran, Assistant Professor of Mathematics, answered questions about the uses of the new major and how it differs from data analytics.
“Companies have data teams, a lot of people working with data, they have different roles that they would need help with,” Cochran said. “Data analysts are those interested in taking data, using data, and existing algorithms to try and understand things about that data. Data Scientists might be looking at the algorithms and retooling them.”
Students in the major will take data and existing algorithms to understand how they work and rework or create new algorithms.
“A good way to describe it is, you can drive the car, you can be a mechanic,” Cochran said. “There’s a valid need for both, but here, knowing more of the mathematics is going to be the tools and wrenches to help you open up the hood and understand what’s going on under the hood so you can use that going forward.”
Students will understand the mathematics of data and how it works to innovate in their fields with new means of sharing data and information.
The major attracts students invested in a diverse range of careers due to its interdisciplinary nature, from business and finance to healthcare, technology, and more. Anthony Head, a Data Science major student, provided his goals with his future degree.
“I would like to go into machine learning and do machine learning engineering,” Head said. “In most cases, that requires a master’s degree, so right out of college, I plan on doing software engineering and then get my master’s to do machine learning engineering.”
Head also provided feedback on his experience as a data science major so far.
“It’s a thrown-together combination of computer science, math, and data analytics,” Head said. “I think an intro to data analytics and computer science would be cool if they had an intro to data science as well.”
The Data Science major at Berry College plays an important role in preparing students for the job market and helping to meet the growing need for data professionals in numerous industries. As the world becomes increasingly data-driven, colleges like Berry are taking steps towards ensuring their students are well-equipped for the job market in the digital age.