University of Southern Denmark: Offers Data Science education

Under the headline "The world is becoming increasingly digital", the University of Southern Denmark (SDU) is offering a two-year data science master's program. The program is based on the understanding that data is a global raw material that doubles in volume every two years, partly due to social media and video streaming, but also companies' use of data.

Not surprisingly, the Master's program in data science has a specific focus on data. On data collection, sorting, storage, analysis, understanding, security and use. That's why the two-year data science master's program qualifies students in data processing, programming, statistics, machine learning, databases, IT security and IT ethics.

Understanding IT and data coupled with domain knowledge The Master's program is part of the Faculty of Science, but the students come with many different educational backgrounds from their bachelor. These include biology, marketing, history, archaeology, economics, political science, etc.

Martin Svensson, Head of the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science at the Faculty of Science at the University of Southern Denmark says:

"We opened up the master's program to all those who have a bachelor or professional bachelor's degree. It's a two-year master's program where we give students a lot of knowledge about data, data analytics and programming. What we get out are people who know a lot. They don't know as much as computer scientists know. They don't know everything about IT in depth. They are not IT specialists. But a lot of companies are looking for people who understand IT and data, and also understand the domain that the organizations work in."

The idea is that as a student you bring domain knowledge with you, and during the program you train your data understanding within the domain knowledge you have. This means that as an employee, you later have a strong domain knowledge and a strong data knowledge and insight - and you can connect the two understandings.

Martin Svensson elaborates:

"For example, we got a person coming from biology who is now a data scientist at the EPA. They use both internal and external IT specialists, and they also employ field biologists. Here they need someone who can integrate these functions in the context of data management. It can also be the banking industry. They employ IT specialists, but they also have people who work in finance or who are lawyers, and a data scientist will often be in an integrator role between the two."

Collaboration with business All science programs at SDU encourage students to do projects and theses together with the business community, but few programs have as much interaction with the business community as the Data Science program does.

Martin Svensson says that it's relatively easy to find good projects in this particular program in collaboration with companies. This means that many students write projects together with companies, which means that students already gain insight and experience in how to apply what they have learned in a realistic context during their studies, and it also gives the business community the opportunity to think about and contribute in an educational context. Both parties express great satisfaction with the collaboration.

A popular educational direction The program has become very popular and is now one of the largest master's programs at the Faculty of Science. Martin Svensson says:

"The program is very popular. It quickly became one of the largest master's programs at the Faculty of Science. This is the fifth year that we have admissions here in the fall of 2023. We recruit from all over the country. Many of those who enter the program have already been working for a while. They are in an industry that they want to stay in, but they want to upgrade their position in data science."