Bachelor's Degree in Data Science

The analysis of various data sets has become a relevant field within the technological and scientific fields. The generation of large volumes of data by today's society and its storage thanks to the decrease in price of information systems, provides new business opportunities while demanding new professional profiles.

Nowadays, strategic decision making is based on the knowledge extracted from the data, both in business environments and in public administrations. Those professionals trained in Data Science will be able to design data collection in any environment (industrial, sociological, economic, political, business, etc.), they will be able to process, analyse and combine data from different sources, as well as extract knowledge and communicate effectively how to manage such knowledge to facilitate strategic decision making.

Due to the multidisciplinary nature of Data Science, it is advisable to have an adequate knowledge in mathematics, statistics, logic and English. No prior knowledge of programming or databases is required, as these are aspects that will be widely developed in the degree. It does require abstract reasoning skills for problem solving, a skill known as computational thinking, as we will work with data from different sources, mostly of an unstructured nature. As a common denominator for all university studies, it is important that students have solid effort skills, commitment to their studies and organizational skills related to their work. Finally, the ability to work as a team becomes specially relevant in the field of Data Science, since it is common for data scientists to be part of a multidisciplinary team.

Once they have completed the studies, the students will be able to design data analysis projects in a comprehensive manner. From capturing data and designing the data model for its storage, to extracting knowledge from data, including the intermediate stages to clean the data, detect anomalies, detect missing data, perform previous data transformation processes as needed in later stages, and applying advanced data analysis techniques, particularly statistical techniques and machine learning to implement descriptive and predictive models. Students will also master the main techniques of data representation and visualisation and obtention of data results to communicate, effectively, the knowledge extracted and highlight the most important items.

According to several international publications, there is currently a high deficit of data scientists in many sectors such as health, banking, governments (national, regional and local), public administrations, industry, press and retail (offline and online), among many others.

Graduates in data science will be trained to lead data analysis projects whose purpose can be: the improvement of industrial processes, risk analysis, the pre-emption of possible epidemics in certain geographical areas, the analysis of drug resistance of certain bacteria, the reorientation of marketing campaigns thanks to the combination of internal data of the company with information obtained after analysing trends in social networks, the design of new products that cover needs detected in certain niche markets, the study of the evolution of ecosystems and, in general, decision-making roles in any organisation.

Data Science students complete their training through internships so that they can join the professional world with some technical and human experience. Some of the companies or institutions which accept UPV students for work placement opportunities are: Indra, Bull, British Telecom, Edicom, Iberdrola or the Generalitat Valenciana (Valencia's Government). In all cases the students receive financial compensation.

Data Science students will have a flexibility similar to that of Informatics Engineering when choosing international destinations in which to study for a semester, carry out their final degree project or internships in companies. The School of Informatics has agreements with some of the best European universities and also with universities in the United States, China, Japan and Australia.

With this degree students may access the following university master's degrees taught by the UPV: Information Management; Software Engineering, Formal Methods and Informations Systems; and Artificial Intelligence, Pattern Recognition and Digital Imaging. As in the rest of the cases, students may apply for admission to any UPV master's degree by taking the subjects.