Data Science Master’s—Master of Applied Science (M.A.S.)
Explore and improve the structure of data. Create and evaluate data storage, retrieval, and calculation models. Construct and test data hypotheses. Learn how to analyze technological data, visualize the results, and articulate your discoveries.
Become a master of data science with your applied data science master’s degree.
Every company, nonprofit, startup, government agency, branch of the military, research laboratory, financial institution, and manufacturing facility acquires technological data. As our capacity to collect and store data increases, so does the demand for data scientists.
Data science involves finding ways to optimize the storage, retrieval, transmission, and analysis of data. It’s about making sense of the data and letting it guide us to solutions and improvements.
Illinois Institute of Technology’s professional data science master’s degree program combines developing your high-level mathematics, statistics, and computer science skills with the ability to communicate results. Through our professional data scientist program, you’ll learn to make a complicated and dynamic world understandable.
Illinois Tech’s rigorous data science graduate program curriculum will provide you with the knowledge, skills, and experience to expand your career opportunities. Whether in Chicago, with its diverse economy and thriving tech community, or across the globe, our data science alumni enjoy success in the technological data science profession.
You can complete our data science master’s program in just two years online, through a hybrid program, or on our high-tech campus, in close proximity to Chicago’s thriving tech industry. Our affordable, data science master’s program is within your reach and your budget.
Program Overview
Illinois Tech’s data science master’s program offers you a number of advantages, including:
- Gain professional expertise through Illinois Tech’s Elevate program. This one-of-a-kind program guarantees hands-on experiences—including research projects, internships, study away, competitions, short courses, and more—as well as personalized academic and career mentorship, all in pursuit of ensuring that our students graduate with career readiness.
- Customize your data science master’s degree program to meet your needs. Complete your degree full-time or part-time, online or on campus, or choose a hybrid format.
- Live and learn in the heart of Chicago’s tech industry. Home to a growing technology industry, a thriving hacking community, and a hive of startup activity, Chicago offers endless food, events, culture, and adventures.
- Earn a high-value, affordable professional master’s degree in data science. We’re rated as an educational best value by The Princeton Review, Forbes, Time, and Money magazine, and ranked third in the nation for upward mobility among highly selective private colleges by Opportunity Insights.
- Learn from leading experts and accomplished researchers. Our faculty act as mentors and encourage students to join them in pushing the boundaries of artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, big data, cloud computing, manufacturing, and more.
Career Opportunities
The demand for data science graduates is exploding and expected to remain high. The United States Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that the job growth rate for data scientists will be 36 percent through 2031. That’s more than 60 percent higher than the growth rate for all jobs nationwide. Data scientists enjoy strong earning power, with the Bureau of Labor Statistics reporting an annual median salary of $100,910 for these professionals.
Graduates of our master’s data scientist program enter the workforce with career opportunities at companies such as Accenture, Google, Amazon, JPMorgan Chase, and Apple in positions such as:
- Data scientist
- Machine learning engineer
- Data systems designer
- Master data analyst
- Data operations manager
Curriculum for our professional data science graduate program
Our rigorous data science graduate program curriculum will challenge you to analyze technological data and results in novel ways through computational foundations, computer science applications, and mathematics. Your coursework will include:
- Database Organization
- Data Mining
- Machine Learning
- Big Data Technologies
- Graph Theory and Applications
Admissions requirements for our data science master’s program
Our data science master’s degree program is a collaborative program with the Department of Computer Science. You’ll complete 33 credit hours of coursework, including a six-credit-hour practicum project to earn your professional master’s degree.
Our data scientist program is designed primarily for those with previous degrees or experience in computer science, statistics, mathematics, natural or social sciences, or business, and who are interested in preparing for a career as a data science professional in business or industry. Full-time students may complete the program in one year, including one summer term.
Admission requirements for our data science graduate program are as follows:
- A bachelor’s degree, not necessarily in computer science, is required, with a minimum overall grade-point average of 3.0 on a 4.0 scale.
- Minimum GRE scores of 304 (quantitative + verbal) and 2.5 (analytic writing) must be submitted.
- One letter of recommendation is required, but two are preferred.
- A professional statement of objectives must be submitted.
- Applicants whose bachelor’s degree was earned at an institution where English is not the primary language of instruction must submit their TOEFL/PTE/IELTS scores.
- Applicants are evaluated on an individual basis, but are expected to have basic knowledge of discrete mathematics, linear algebra, probability, statistics, relational databases, and some programming languages such as MATLAB, C++, Java, Python, or Ruby.
- Every applicant who meets the admission deadline is automatically considered for a graduate scholarship. If you receive a funding award, you will be notified of the award in your official admission letter.
- Applicants lacking prerequisite coursework, but who are otherwise strong candidates (i.e., those who have relevant work experience) may be admitted, but such applicants will be required to make up any needed coursework. For more information about these requirements, visit our Prerequisite Undergraduate Coursework page.
For more program information and answers to many of your questions, please visit our Frequently Asked Questions page.
Why Choose Illinois Tech’s Data Science Graduate Program?
Illinois Tech’s data science graduate program offers you:
- A customizable degree to fit your needs and goals
- The opportunity to live and learn in Chicago
- Guaranteed hands-on experiences through Elevate
- An affordable degree with high value to employers
- A personalized, mentored education with expert faculty
Scholarships and Financial Aid for Our Data Science Master’s Program
We work hard to make an Illinois Tech education affordable and accessible. Learn more about graduate scholarships and financial aid, including:
- Graduate Pathway Scholarship: All students admitted to a master’s program at Illinois Tech are automatically considered for a merit-based scholarship at the time of admission.
- Graduate Assistantships: Assistantships are offered through academic departments and colleges with a focus on research and teaching. Graduate assistants receive partial tuition remission and a monthly stipend, along with assessment, teaching, or research experience.
- Graduate Research Funding: Individual faculty members may have research grants that can be used to help fund student research efforts.
Megha Lokanadham says the Data Science program at Illinois Tech covers all the topics that students need to be ready for a career in the field
Megha Lokanadham (M.A.S. DATA SCIENCE '18)
Lessons learned through faculty mentoring impact Utkarsh Khanna’s approach to workplace projects.
Utkarsh Khanna (M.A.S. Data Science ’16)
Mamta Kanvinde still reviews the notes she took during class while earning her Master of Data Science degree at Illinois Tech.
Mamta Kanvinde (M.A.S. Data Science ’16)
Vinod Rao says the capstone practicum project in Illinois Tech’s Data Science program showed him how to apply data to solve a real-world problem.
Vinod Rao (M.A.S. DATA SCIENCE '18)
As an IT analyst, Ying Wu uses tools and technologies such as machine learning, statistics, and data visualization, all of which she studied in the data science program.
Ying Wu (M.A.S. DATA SCIENCE ’17)
Manoj Kumar Gaddam credits the techniques taught in Illinois Tech’s Data Science program prepared him for a professional setting
Manoj Kumar Gaddam (M.A.S. DATA SCIENCE '18)Additional Information
Featured Faculty
Yuhan Ding
Ioan Raicu
Shlomo Argamon
Lulu Kang
Mustafa Bilgic
Sonja Petrović
Gady Agam
Maggie Cheng
Matthew Dixon
Boris Glavic
Kai Shu
A data scientist's job is to make sense of a complex and changing world.
Data Science is the driving force to advance technology.
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