The plan of study is 30 credit hours. It includes six core courses and four elective courses. Transfer students may be able to transfer in approved graduate courses from an accredited institution.
F-1 students can only take one online course per semester. They must take a minimum of 8 credit hours per semester; the exception being in their final semester. These limitations apply to fall and spring semesters but not summer sessions.
Core Courses (18 cr.)
- INFO-H 501 Introduction to Data Science Programming
- INFO-H 510 Statistics for Data Science
- LIS-S 511 Database Design
- INFO-H 515 Statistical Learning (prerequisite: graduate statistics course)
- INFO-H 516 Cloud Computing for Data Science (prerequisites: graduate database course)
- INFO-H 611 Mathematical and Logical Foundations of Informatics
Students may test out of INFO-H 611 and LIS-S 511. Students do not receive credit toward their required 30 credit hours by testing out of a course. However, they may instead replace the course with a specialization course or approved elective.
Elective Courses (12 cr.)
- INFO-B 505 Informatics Project Management
- INFO-H 517 Visualization Design, Analysis, and Evaluation (prerequisite: programming experience)
- INFO-H 518 Deep Learning Neural Networks
- INFO-H 519 Natural Language Processing with Deep Learning
- INFO-H 695 Thesis/Project in Applied Data Science
- INFO-I 575 Informatics Research Design
- INFO-I 595 Professional Internship
- INFO-I 698 Research in Informatics (Independent Study)
- INFO-P 502 Modeling Crisis
- NEWM-N 510 Web Database Development
Students may replace elective courses with non-Luddy courses with the permission of the program director.
Thesis or Project
The Thesis/Project is available to highly motivated students ready to carry out publishable research. Students must prepare a prospectus and gain a commitment from a primary faculty advisor with research interests in data science by the end of the first semester. By the end of the second semester, students must complete a course on research design and methods (e.g., INFO-I 575 or LIS-S 506).
The thesis or project must be completed in two semesters or in a semester and summer. Thesis students register for a total of 6 credits and project students register for a total of 3–6 credits of INFO-H 695 Thesis/Project in Data Science. Students are required to prepare and defend a research proposal with a timeline of deliverables in addition to the thesis or project.