UC Irvine Data Science or Cal Poly SLO Statistics major and Data Science Minor?

College Search & Selection
1

Which would you choose and why?

2

Here are the major requirements for each:

http://catalogue.uci.edu/donaldbrenschoolofinformationandcomputersciences/departmentofstatistics/#majortext

http://catalog.calpoly.edu/collegesandprograms/collegeofsciencemathematics/statistics/bsstatistics/
http://catalog.calpoly.edu/collegesandprograms/collegeofsciencemathematics/statistics/crossdisciplinarystudiesminordatascience/

Does he want more of a mix of CS and statistics (UCI data science) or a more statistics-heavy program (CPSLO statistics)?

3

He got interested in the field via online courses in data science and some were more coding and some more stats. And he’s a big Freakonomics fan. In the end I think it’s diving something that he enjoys regardless of the method.

4

for me - SLO, hands down. based mostly on the out of classroom experience. The smaller school, college town, etc. are pretty unique among CA public colleges. UCI is a great school but, it is huge and surrounded by the OC and simply not as intimate of an educational experience.

I’d have him take some tours, talk to some students and see which he likes most.

5

My $.02: these two are almost polar opposites in terms of college town atmosphere and campus feel. No right answer, just need to decide what you like best.

6

Both of those degrees can get you a job as a Data Scientist which in my opinion is more of a job title than a major, and it’s not even that helpful of a job title–I mean it doesn’t describe the work which varies widely between sectors and companies.

Freakonomics is actually economics. It’s social science. So if that’s what drives him, I’d go for stats with a CS or DS minor.

DS major tends to be more a combo of data engineering, business analysis, and CS (algorithms). Using data to solve problems. Versus statistics which is more using data to understand problems.

7

If he wants to take economics courses as out-of-major electives, he may want to compare the economics offerings. UCI does have a more math-intensive intermediate economics sequence (105A, 105B, 105C) if that is of interest.

http://catalogue.uci.edu/schoolofsocialsciences/departmentofeconomics/#courseinventory
http://catalog.calpoly.edu/coursesaz/econ/