PHOTO: Lawrence University
APPLETON, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — Lawrence University is expanding its offerings to address the growing need for employees in data science.
“We’re expanding both our course offerings and also our experiential learning opportunities for students here in the community,” said Andrew Sage, Associate Professor of Statistics at Lawrence.
The university is launching its ‘Data Science and Statistics’ major to begin this fall. The program started as a minor five years ago and has grown to 20 members. It’s the largest enrollment for a minor offered at the university.
“Areas like biology, economics, psychology. There’s such a range of fields where people need to work with data to learn and make good decisions in those fields,” Sage explained. “And it’s great to see students engaging with data.”
Christyn Abaray, Vice President for Enrollment Management says the university is seeing more prospective students with interest in big data. The goal is for the major to expand on what the minor started.
“It really enables us to position students to be able to really go into the world, and to any field looking at data, understanding big data, and being able to communicate it,” Abaray said.
And while many know the university for its music programs, Abaray says Lawrence has always been a place for liberal arts.
“This is a nod to what we’ve always been doing, and just puts it on the same profile as we’ve done with the conservatory of music,” she explained.
Students in the major will be given the chance to work alongside local businesses to meet the growing need.
“The students benefit from the opportunity to engage with stakeholders and professionals here in the community, and the community and the organizations benefit from the research being done by the students,” Sage said.
Sage added the demand for data science jobs will increase by 34% in the next decade.
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