Missouri S&T plans new degrees in data science
Posted by Peter Ehrhard
Students walking on campus in the fall 2025. Photo by Michael Pierce, Missouri S&T.
To meet the state and country’s growing demand to make sense of large amounts of statistics and data, Missouri S&T plans to add a new bachelor’s and master’s degree in data science.
The University of Missouri Board of Curators approved Missouri S&T’s proposal to create the new bachelor of science and master of science degrees during the board meeting today (Thursday, Nov. 20). The degree proposals will now go before the Missouri Coordinating Board for Higher Education for approval.
“We are extremely excited to get this program approved so we can start recruiting and teaching students,” says Dr. John Harris, provost and executive vice chancellor for academic affairs at Missouri S&T. “The degree will fit the university perfectly due to S&T already offering almost all of the courses necessary to put together the data science program, with S&T’s other STEM offerings supporting it.”
The proposed degree will draw on Missouri S&T’s expertise in statistics, artificial intelligence and machine learning, and computer programming to help address a projected growth in the field, as seen by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The multidisciplinary program will be offered jointly through S&T’s mathematics and statistics department and computer science department.
Data scientists generally use various computational methods to make sense of large sets of data by combining computer science and mathematics to gain insights and analyze trends.
“Data scientists are needed in fields such as health care, banking and finance, research and development, information technology, and more,” says Harris. “Our program is unique in that it will prepare students through cross-disciplinary courses and flexibility with advanced elective courses in various disciplines.”
For more information about Missouri S&T’s degree programs, visit futurestudents.mst.edu.
About Missouri S&T
Missouri University of Science and Technology (Missouri S&T) is a STEM-focused research university of over 7,000 students located in Rolla, Missouri. Part of the four-campus University of Missouri System, Missouri S&T offers over 100 degrees in 40 areas of study and is among the nation’s top public universities for salary impact, according to the Wall Street Journal. For more information about Missouri S&T, visit www.mst.edu.
Why didn’t you reach out for advice?
I am retired now, but I went through MIT training in big data, and processing with MapD. Too much data to crunch with a CPU. Necessary to spread the work across multiple processors, therefore GPUs. Hello Nvidia maker of GPU boards as used in gaming technology. Seems the game people were leading edge.
Hadoop was first to have a commercial product although not the best solution requiring improvement.
So, I certified in Hadoop. Still not much opportunity for a contractor. Seems India based Hadoop had the market covered. I focused on adoption of Agile methodology for application development. Now, looks like AI has taken over that market. So, I retired. After 50 plus years with BS in math and MS in Computer Science from Rolla my best job was programming the Apollo Program lunar landing simulations in Fortran in 1969 and mission support at NASA in Houston for the lunar missions. I am still waiting for the younger generations to catch up.
Queuing theory is one of the most relevant courses.