Pacific Explores Data Science Major, Post-Bacc

Pacific University is in the process of developing a data science major and post-baccalaureate certificate. Data science majors will take courses in mathematics, computer science, statistics, ethics, modeling, and communications. Through this course of study, students will gain practical, hands-on experience collecting, analyzing, modeling and presenting data.

Big Data is found in almost every industry: social media, business, banking records, and healthcare, just to name a few. Data comes from sensors that are embedded in electronic devices and GPS systems; it is also derived from activity on websites and social networking platforms such as Facebook and Instagram.

Data scientist was ranked the No. 1 job by Glassdoor for the last two years, with a median base salary of $110,000, and 4,524 job openings, and there are projected to be hundreds of thousands of unfilled jobs in the next decade. According to Forbes magazine, IBM predicts "annual demand for the fast-growing new roles of data scientist, data developers, and data engineers will reach nearly 700,000 openings by 2020,” and the pay in these jobs will be highly competitive, averaging between $105,000 and $117,000. 

Although this new program is still being developed, we hope to have it available within the next year or so. If you want to learn more about the upcoming data science major, please contact Bill Breslin, chair of Mathematics and Computer Science or faculty from that department.