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Birmingham-Southern Launches Accelerated Data Science Program

Birmingham-Southern Launches Accelerated Data Science Program

For Immediate Release
Feb. 1, 2021

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. – Birmingham-Southern College is launching a new Accelerated Data Science Program: Summer 2021, in collaboration with Flatiron School. The 12-week immersive summer program is the first of its kind for undergraduate students in Alabama, and it is the first undergraduate data science collaboration between Flatiron School and a college or university.

Birmingham-Southern College has engaged Flatiron School, a leading educational organization based in New York, to bring its curriculum to support the launch of a program that addresses the growing need of data science skills in the workforce with the intellectual rigor and context of a Birmingham-Southern liberal arts education.

Collecting and interpreting data is big business – and only growing bigger. Data is collected through apps, automobile technology, and even kitchen appliances that connect to the web. The World Economic Forum predicted 44 zettabytes of data would be in existence at the beginning of 2020. (One Zettabyte is about a thousand Exabytes, a billion Terabytes, or a trillion Gigabytes.)

Data drives decisions in virtually every industry and profession, from medicine and public health to hospitality, media, construction, insurance, real estate, agriculture, banking and securities, transportation, energy, and sports. The demand for employees who understand and can apply data is enormous: By 2026, there will be 11.5 million job openings in data science, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Filling those openings in our community will be vital to growing the Birmingham economy. According to a 2018 Burning Glass report, for every 6.4 technology job opportunities in Birmingham, only one position is ultimately filled. Filling those openings in Birmingham, Huntsville, and other growing communities will be vital to growing the Alabama economy.

“Closing the workforce gap is necessary to fuel the city’s fastest-growing companies,” BSC President Daniel B. Coleman said. “BSC will have an even more significant impact on Birmingham’s future by teaching data science and how to apply it across disciplines in the liberal arts, and by providing internships to our students at the companies that are most likely to create new jobs. BSC will help close the gap in highly skilled labor and enable Birmingham to grow. This problem isn't unique to Birmingham — cities across the country need to fill data science positions — and our students will be prepared to work anywhere. "

“This is not a boot camp,” Coleman added. “What makes the BSC program different is that while it does instill knowledge of programming and coding, it does so in the context of how that knowledge will be applied to serve a wide range of industries, businesses, and professions. This is the kind of program typically delivered at the graduate school level, and we are pleased to offer it as part of the BSC experience.”

Students who complete the program will be able to retrieve, organize, and interpret data using Python; better visualize consumer, social, and popular trends; explore data to create new hypotheses for advanced analysis; use presentation techniques and share insights on data with others; build new and evolving skills on top of a fundamental understanding of data science; and apply knowledge in data science to any other discipline.

The program’s limited enrollment is open to current BSC students as well as students from other colleges and universities who can receive transferable credits back to their home institutions. The program also can accommodate employees from area companies wishing to build skills in data science. On-campus housing will be available.

In fall 2021 or spring 2022, Birmingham-Southern students who successfully complete the program will receive a paid internship with a local company, where they will use their skills in a real-world environment. Non-BSC students will also have the opportunity to interview for internships.

“Our hope is that these internships lead to full-time positions, helping to further build the pool of talented graduates who launch their careers in Alabama,” President Coleman said. “Birmingham-Southern graduates have been part of growth and service across Birmingham for more than 100 years. The Accelerated Data Science Program is yet another way the College will help provide the forward-thinking workforce Birmingham and the state of Alabama need to keep growing.”

The BSC Data Science Advisory Council includes 12 co-founders, a chief technology officer, and a vice president, representing some of the most successful entrepreneurs and business leaders in Birmingham and Huntsville. Participating companies include Regions Bank and Shipt, as well as Airship, DealNews, Fleetio, Guideway Care, Harmony Venture Labs, IllumniCare, MotionMobs, NxtSoft, O3 Solutions, Quanthub, Rippleworx, and Vituro Health.

The Birmingham-Southern College mission to prepare men and women for lives of significance is designed to foster intellectual and personal development and challenge students to engage in their community and the world. Data science is a vital tool in pursuit of that mission, impacting areas of study across campus by increasing accessibility to massive digital archives, enabling deeper research, and enabling the scaling of experimentation.

“One of the primary skills fostered by the liberal arts is critical thinking,” said BSC Provost Dr. Bradley J. Caskey. “The liberal arts give individuals tools to analyze an issue based on evidence and draw conclusions. Unleashing the power of data through statistics is a powerful tool that goes hand in hand with critical thinking and is integral to a modern-day liberal arts education.”

The Accelerated Data Science Program: Summer 2021 will run as a series of three-week classes from May 24 to August 13. All undergraduate students (BSC or non-BSC) may apply, and no prior data science or programming experience is necessary. BSC students who complete the program and internship will earn a minor in Data Science. The cost of the program is $6,600 for current BSC students and 2019 and 2020 BSC graduates and $9,500 for non-BSC students.

Applications are now open to enroll through March 30. An online information session will be held at 12 p.m. Feb. 10. Sign up here. Learn more at http://www.bsc.edu/academics/datascience.

Media contact: Amy Bickers Abeyta, Director of Communications, [email protected]