HOUGHTON, NY (December 12, 2014) - Houghton College is leading the way among liberal arts institutions by offering data science classes and internships within its course selections. These new and innovative opportunities in data science open up employment possibilities for current and future students immediately after graduation in the high-demand field of data science.

According to a 2014 article in Forbes, Rawn Shah, a contributing writer to Forbes, CNN, JavaWorld and various other online and print publications commented, “Data Science is gaining traction in the industry, as analytics, data collection, sensors, and Big Data become a more regular part of our online existence.”

The article also states that findings in an O’Reilly Media survey showed that for the job title data scientist “the median salary reported was $117,500.” Many of these jobs do not require an education beyond a bachelor’s degree.

As the data science curriculum at Houghton College progresses, two new classes: Data Science Senior Seminar and Social Media Marketing and Data Analytics have recently been added.

Houghton alumna Carmen McKell ‘87 and her husband Garfield Fisher are owners of BaseMetrics, an advanced analytics and visualization company based out of Ottawa, Canada. McKell and Fisher are working alongside Houghton College to create a competitive curriculum of data science course offerings. McKell said of data science, “It is a new field designed to fill the demand for data-savvy professionals in virtually every part of the economy.”

Ken Bates, department chair of business and economics at Houghton, said managing and marketing cannot be done properly “unless we can somehow harness the streams of information flowing at us all the time.”

According to Bates, the curriculum in development is being designed to include not only computer science, but also communication, business and psychology, engaging an interdisciplinary approach.

In conjunction with a liberal arts education, McKell said, “The data science courses will prepare students to communicate complicated findings to a wide range of people in several different ways, such as written text, or infographics, as visual stories or data dashboards.”

Kim Pool, director of the Vocational Opportunities and Career Advising center at Houghton, said the three branches of the proposed data science curriculum are: social good, learning analytics, and sports analytics. Social good is concerned with humanitarian, nonprofit, and government efforts; learning involves higher education such as admission or alumni relations; sports will involve Houghton’s own sporting data and concussion analysis of athletes.

Pool also anticipates a new concussion lab to be added to the new $23 million Kerr-Pegula Field House that was recently opened at Houghton College.

According to Bates, there is no other Christian college offering a data science major. He hopes for Houghton to be the first, or among the first, especially from a liberal arts perspective.

Concerning the application of the major in the workplace, McKell said, “Let’s just say there is not a job that can’t be enhanced with the understanding and use of data.”

###

Houghton College is a liberal arts institution that challenges students to academic excellence - in the context of a relevant Christian community - and empowers them to enrich the world. The college of 1,000 students is located in Western New York, just 65 miles from Buffalo and Rochester. For more information, please visit www.houghton.edu.