The MS in Data Science and Business Analytics curriculum is structured to be completed in a single year (fall, winter, and spring/summer) or a two year program for part-time students, with a total of 30 credit-hours required for each student. The program offers three areas of specialization: Advanced Analytics, Data Computing, and Data-Driven Business.

Trained by world-class faculty under the stewardship of a strong Industrial Advisory Board, students will learn identification and framing of problems; acquisition, management, and utilization of large and fast-moving streams of data; creation, analysis, solution, and interpretation of mathematical models using appropriate methodology; and the integration of these interdisciplinary skills to enable graduates to successfully develop and execute data science and business analytics projects.

The "interdisciplinary core" includes 9 hours of coursework across business, computer science, and industrial engineering. On top of this integrated breadth of study covering the core areas of data science and business analytics, each student has 9 hours of "concentration" courses to give them depth in an engineering, business, or analytics area. Each student's 6 credits of elective choices can be personalized to support their individual career goals. The final piece of the curriculum is a 6-credit applied analytics practicum, in which students will work with companies and organizations on real analytics problems.

Base Curriculum - All Concentrations

• Data Science Analytics (3 Credit Hours)
• Data Science Strategy & Leadership (3 Credit Hours)
• Computing Platforms for Data Science (3 Credit Hours)
• 3 Concentration Courses (9 Credit Hours)
• 2 Elective Courses (6 Credit Hours)
• Data Science and Business Analytics Practicum (6 Credits)
• Each student's course choices must satisfy the requirements of at least one of the defined concentrations (Advanced Analytics, Data Computing, or Data-Driven Business).

M.S. Data Science Concentration Options:

Advanced Analytics Concentration
The Advanced Analytics concentration provides students with a greater knowledge and understanding of the quantitative methodology of descriptive, predictive, and prescriptive analytics: how to select, build, solve, and analyze models using methodology such as parametric and non-parametric statistics, regression, forecasting, data mining, machine learning, optimization, stochastics, and simulation. 

Data-Driven Business Concentration
The Data-Driven Business concentration provides students with a deeper understanding of the practice of using analytics in business and industry: how to understand, frame, and solve problems in marketing, operations, finance, management of information technology, human resources, and accounting in order to develop and execute analytics projects within businesses. 

Data Computing Concentration
The Data Computing concentration provides students with a deeper understanding of the practice of dealing with so-called "big data:" how to acquire, preprocess, store, manage, analyze, and visualize data arriving at high volume, velocity, and variety. 

Elective Courses
The program offers an extensive list of Elective Courses.

Capstone Experience: Applied Data Science and Business Analytics Practicum - All Concentrations

At the conclusion of the program, in the spring/summer semester, each student will complete a 6-credit-hour applied Data Science & Business Analytics practicum. For the practicum course. Students will work in cross-disciplinary teams on a significant data science and business analytics project that companies and organizations bring to campus; those teams will consist of M.S. Data Science and Business Analytics students from each concentration, to bring each of their specializations to bear in an integrated solution. In this way, the interdisciplinary learning will be emphasized in practice as well as in the classroom.

Additional Resources: All Concentrations

In addition to learning from world leaders and cutting-edge researchers in data science and business analytics, students in the M.S. Data Science and Business Analytics program will have access to a variety of specialized resources, including:

• Academic and professional advising
• Job placement support
• Funding to attend a major analytics conference
• Exposure at Wayne State's annual Big Data and Business Analytics Summit
• Wayne State's state-of-the-art high-performance computing infrastructure for massive-scale analytics
• Free cloud computing resources
• Free and discounted analytics, engineering, and productivity software