As the field of data science grows and expands to new parameters, opening the floor to new disciplines and ideas, so is the Duan Family Center for Computing and Data Sciences at Boston University.
The CDS program introduced three new courses this semester, giving students an opportunity to learn about relevant topics in data science, including artificial intelligence and algorithms.
“With everything happening in the world right now in terms of data and AI, we’re trying to offer courses that will address those topics,” Micah Sieber, the director of academic programs at CDS, said.
In a world that is becoming increasingly more interconnected with technology, these courses are particularly useful, said Aldo Pacchiano, an assistant professor at CDS.
Pacchiano is teaching a new course called CDS DS 592: Special Topics in Mathematical and Computational Sciences. This course, he said, is designed around understanding algorithms, which are the set of instructions a computer uses to make predictions and analyze data.
Organizations like Amazon and social media platforms use these algorithms to generate content recommendations that are engaging to users, Pacchiano said.
He said it is beneficial for students to become knowledgeable about these technologies “not only for [students] to help develop them, but also to think about their place in the world.”
The field of data science is relatively new, so courses that focus on younger disciplines in data science, like algorithms, were not possible until now, Pacchiano said. Textbooks now have enough material to teach about these topics in depth, he said.
Alishah Chator, a postdoctoral researcher at BU, teaches CDS DS 593: Privacy in Practice, a class that applies human behavior to data science.
Chator said his inspiration for the course came from the computer science classes he took in college that focused on human behavior.
“I really wished I had something like that that was just in my own program. So, if you look at the course, you see it has a lot of the inclinations of a social science class,” Chator said.
Despite being a data science course, DS 593 will be driven by class discussion and writing assignments. Students taking this class will learn to become comfortable with questioning everyday technologies, he said.
The third new course CDS is offering, CDS DS 497: Special Topics on Social and Behavioral Sciences, will also dive into how data science can be used to understand human behavior and cognitions through analysis of human datasets, according to the CDS website.
Each of the new courses is designed to cover a wide range of disciplines in the data science field and give students the opportunity to explore their interests in depth, Sieber said.
Sam Cowan, a sophomore in CDS, said he enrolled in Pacchiano’s course this semester to learn more about the topics of the course at a higher level.
The course is designed to “elevate students to the level of cutting-edge research,” Cowan said, which prompted his initial interest after taking a class with Pacchiano in the fall.
Aside from creating courses to focus on contemporary topics, CDS aims to ensure that each of these courses are in areas where there is high student demand, Sieber said. Their current focus has been on higher level courses.
The data science program at Boston University is young, with their first matriculated class entering in fall 2022. However, the number of students enrolled in data science courses is growing at an annual rate of 370%.
“We wanted to make sure to build out higher level elective courses for [upperclassmen students] so they could round out their studies and complete the elective requirement,” Sieber said, especially as the first matriculated classes become upperclassmen.
Sieber said the CDS program offers new courses every semester in hopes of providing students with a learning experience that is impactful and relevant to all interests, regardless of one’s major.
Chator said that he designed his course to be accessible to all students, even those who only have an introductory level of exposure to things like programming and statistics. He said he hopes that students won’t be scared off by the “data science piece” of the course.
“Almost anything can kind of frame under the lens of data science,” Chator said. “Be willing to give it a shot.”
