Ohio State’s new interdisciplinary undergraduate major in data analytics, approved by the Ohio Board of Regents in February, 2014, will address a burgeoning need for data analytics professionals and provide a pathway to nearly limitless careers for its graduates.
Indeed, the Harvard Business Review has referred to data science and analytics as the “sexiest job in the twenty-first century.”
Sexy or not, the need is there and the door is wide-open for students who succeed in the new program, the first of its kind offered by a major research institution.

Companies are seeking employees who have the skills to build and query large data sets and who understand how to ask the right questions and extract critical knowledge.

“This has been a response to a strongly-articulated need,” says Peter March, mathematics professor and dean of the natural and mathematical sciences in the College of Arts and Sciences. “And, it has been a whole-institutional response.

“Issues of ‘Big Data’ engender partnerships with diverse business enterprises. Name a major industry—banking, insurance, healthcare, retail, oil and gas, logistics—and there are analytics issues.”

Expertise in data analytics will be in demand in virtually all areas of human enterprise—from the social sciences to engineering, scientific discovery and cyber-security.

Graduates will be sought after by financial and media empires, health-care, insurance, government, military and legal systems, and the pool will keep expanding.

The data analytics major gets underway autumn semester 2014. It is made up of three basic parts: core courses, a specialization and a capstone—or internship— experience through partnerships with businesses.

The College of Arts and Sciences and the College of Engineering are partnering to deliver the core courses in computer sciences, mathematics and statistics. Christopher Hans, associate professor of statistics; and Srinivasan Parthasarathy, professor, computer and engineering science, are co-directors.

“All majors will receive solid foundational footing,” March says. “They will learn principles of data representation and management, computer programming and statistical modeling and analysis. While some of these courses are in-place, some statistics courses have to be created—as they have not yet been offered—so we are being challenged to be flexible, responsive and inventive.

“The important thing about the program is that it is a striking balance between technical ability and business acumen. We wanted to build-in a structure to develop both highly technical skillsets and the ability to function in solutions-oriented teams.”

Core courses coupled with a specialization in business or medicine or any unit on campus that can identify a workforce need that meshes with the major will strengthen the students’ ability to function in the marketplace.

Majors will receive a BS in data analytics from the College of Arts and Sciences and are likely to be actively recruited by major companies such as: Nationwide, IBM, JPMorgan Chase, Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon….