Mount Holyoke College, the highly rated liberal arts educational institution for women in South Hadley, Massachusetts, announced that it will offer a new bachelor’s degree program in data science.
Data science is a way to extract meaningful knowledge from large amounts of complex data by using scientific methods, statistics, and computing tools. The college states that the new major will emphasize how to be effective, ethical and judicious consumers of data while preparing students to communicate data concepts and outcomes.
Valerie Barr, the Jean E. Sammet Professor of Computer Science and chair of the computer science department at Mount Holyoke College, explains that “having a major in this field is very appropriate for Mount Holyoke College, given our historic strength in the sciences and our commitment to the liberal arts and empowering students to address difficult questions across a range of areas.”
Jon Western, vice president for academic affairs at the college, added that “with a focus on applying computational and statistical reasoning to disciplines in the humanities, social sciences and sciences across the college, the new major is in keeping with our liberal arts mission and our commitment to meeting the emerging needs and opportunities of our increasingly complicated world.”