Data Science

Due to the constant increase in data volumes and data complexity, Data Science has created a new, interdisciplinary field of work that covers a wide range of aspects of data analysis, such as handling large amounts of data, statistical modelling, visualisation, pattern recognition with machine learning methods, but also ethical and legal questions. Data Scientists are urgently needed for many socially significant developments, e.g. in the areas of intelligent vehicles or housing, artificial intelligence or social media.

The extraction of information from data is a genuinely interdisciplinary undertaking: The data collection and the communication of the results of the analyses require a link to the domain from which the data originate. The processing and analysis of the data requires an interaction of computer algorithms with statistical methods.

In this Master’s degree programme students acquire the relevant skills for these endeavours. These include the foundations of machine learning that allow to critically assess the merits and dangers of harvesting massive amounts of data. The inclusion of classical statistical tools adds to the understanding of the limitations of artificial intelligence and data driven methods.

At graduation students have a rich tool chest at their disposal ranging from the required IT-skills to the statistical knowledge allowing for the development of new machine learning methods and the application of modern tools of data extraction in many areas. Students also learn to work in a highly interdisciplinary environment as the program is run by the Faculty of Business Administration and Economics and the Centre for Statistics (ZeSt) jointly with the Faculty of Technology. Finally the program also provides ample possibilities to discuss pressing questions concerning legal and ethical implications of modern machine learning approaches.

As a consequence the graduates are well equipped for the booming labour market longing for data science experts.