Data Science at Rowan University: Real-World Skills, Hands-On Experience, and Endless Career Opportunities
Charalampos “Babis” Papachristou, Ph.D., is an Associate Professor and Assessment Coordinator for the College of Science and Mathematics at Rowan University. Here, he discusses the possibilities for careers and programs for students pursuing a Data Science degree at Rowan, whether those students plan to earn a bachelor’s degree, a master’s, or a Ph.D.
Excited by his professional field, Dr. Papachristou begins by providing his personal definition of what exactly data science is, for anyone curious to learn: “Data science is the art of turning data into meaningful insights. Those insights can just help you make informed decisions for all kinds of businesses or organizations or even personal life. For example, dating. How do you decide who is your perfect sort of partner? Right? So you can use algorithms, you can use data, collect data and just do all that stuff with data science, any way you can collect data. Data science is relevant and you collect data everywhere, every day. You just do. Every time you scroll your phone, every time you take medicine, every time you sneeze, that’s data for us. We just use that information and we make sense of that information and we use it to make, as I said, informed decisions about everything.”
Dr. Papachristou also emphasizes the modern importance of data science and how it will continue to be a growing field for years to come: “Data science is still rapidly growing. It is growing exponentially day by day. Every store, every big retail market, like Target or Walmart, they track every time you scan a product. They basically record that information and they try to use the information to figure out ways to better satisfy you and other customers. Or hospitals, they have your medical records. They digitize them. Everything goes online and into databases. They can extract that information and use machine learning algorithms to identify patterns. We can even figure out health issues that may have already occurred, how they will occur, or how likely it is that you can have them.”
He also touches on the use of data science in professional sports: “They record every little piece of information during the game and basically use that information to build better strategies to beat their opponents the next time if they lost, or they can even guide decisions, like how to get new players on the team where they are lacking. So data science is basically relevant every day in many situations.”
Many prospective data science students are surely wanting to know what kinds of programs Rowan offers and what sets Rowan’s data science program apart from that of other institutions. To that end, Dr. Papachristou says, “Rowan offers any kind of degree that one may need, including bachelor’s, master’s, and Ph.D. The courses are a hands-on experience with industry relevance and they give the students the opportunity to work on real-world problems. So students gain a solid foundation from those courses in mathematics, statistics and computer science, which is crucial for analysis and modeling of data. They also learn programming languages like Python, which they will need to use to program the data analysis methods and organize the data, clean them, and visualize them. So they study data, machine learning of data visualization, and many, many more skills, all of which are really essential for creating a well-rounded education in data science, which can get them on a path to a really, really great career.”
With a constantly-evolving, wide variety of possibilities for careers, internships, and courses to choose from, the data science major at Rowan is sure to grow exponentially to match market needs. Dr. Papachristou encourages any students potentially interested in the program to reach out to faculty in the major and research to see if the major is a good fit for you.
Story by Connor Bicknell, senior communication studies major