Data Science

Data are interesting and they drive innovation. In the 21st century, data plays a similar role in the digital economy as coal played in the 18th century in industrial development. Huge amounts of data allow us to exploit and develop new generations of technological solutions such as machine learning, artificial intelligence, advanced statistics, predictive behavioral analysis of users, customers, and markets. In addition, analyzing large data is a creative and interesting activity.

Graduates have flexible career options. Processing of big data is becoming a basic building block in all areas thanks to massive development of information technologies. Data are important in all sectors and at all levels of organizations, even outside the IT industry: banking and finance, automotive, healthcare, transport, retail, energetics, game development, government, new areas of research such as bioinformatics, biomedicine, or modern physics. The study program will equip our students with unique combination of mathematical knowledge and practical IT skills. It is up to you which direction your career will take. The positions you can apply for include: Data Analyst, Data Scientist, Data Visualization Specialist, Statistician, Programmer, Big Data Analyst, Modeling Specialist.

Data science experts are in high demand and indispensable in practice. Unemployed data analysts do not exist, the demand for data science experts is continuously riging. Data science professionals' salaries are higher than programmers' salaries and are growing at a faster pace. Most programmers become dissatisfied with their work over time. Data analysts are typically much more satisfied in their work.

The courses included in the study program cover the following key areas: 

• Programming: Python, C++, algorithms and data structures, databases
• Mathematical foundations: discrete mathematics, calculus, algebra, statistics, optimization
• Specialized courses: visualization, data management, machine learning
• Choice of application domains: economy, physics, computational vision, meteorology, bioinformatics, biomedicine, robotics

It is possible to include an internship as a part of the compulsory elective courses.

Bachelor thesis is a two-semester project under the direction of the thesis supervisor. A typical topic for the bachelor thesis will involve creative analysis of existing data, either using freely available data sets or in collaboration with external partners. Another options is to design and implement new tools for analysis or visualization of data.

Graduates of the data science study program are necessary to fill the emerging job positions of data analysts in private companies in all sectors of the economy, but especially in the financial sector (financial data analysis), services sector (trend development, customer behavior analysis), manufacturing sector (market requirements prediction, optimization of production processes), as well as in the information technology sector (big data analysis, development of intelligent software systems). In addition, graduates can be employed in research institutes that need to analyze large amounts of data (e.g. nuclear and experimental physics, molecular biology, biotechnology, medicine) and in public administration (analytical departments of ministries and local governments). The creation of new jobs in this area is a consequence of the systematic deployment of information technologies in all areas of life, as well as significant advances in the collection and analysis of this data.

Bachelor's degree graduates are fully prepared for their future employment. If they are interested in developing their skills further, they have the opportunity to continue their education in master's degree programs in informatics (data science block) or probability and statistics. Currently, it is not possible to create new interdisciplinary study programs due to the interim rules that are in effect during the transition to new accreditation standards (this interim transition period started in 2018). After the transition is accomplished, we also plan to create master's study program in data science.