Career Paths

Local and Regional Demand

The Wall Street Journal named Nashville as the #2 hottest job markets in the U.S. with unprecedented tech sector growth. Inc. magazine ranked Nashville the 4^th best place to start a business in America based on many key metrics. MoneyGeek ranked Nashville as the top city for job seekers in 2020. SmartAdvisor named Nashville the 2^nd best place in the U.S. to start a business. The U.S. News and World named Nashville the best place to live in Tennessee and 15^th best in the U.S. in 2019. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics named Nashville #1 fastest-growing large metro in 2017. Forbes ranked Nashville 3^rd best big city for jobs in the U.S. in 2017. Nashville's economy is expanding and attracting new businesses. Nashville is within 650 miles of 50% of the U.S. population and this attracts many companies to relocate in Nashville and surrounding areas. For instance, Nissan has moved its North America headquarters to Nashville. Nashville is a major center of the nation’s investor-owned health-care services. There are more than 400 healthcare companies and support firms located in the Nashville area. More than half of all for-profit hospital beds in America are owned and/or managed by Nashville-area firms like Community Health Systems‚ HCA‚ LifePoint Hospitals‚ IASIS Healthcare‚ Healthmont and Province Healthcare‚ among others. Many of these companies need highly-qualified data scientists.

Employer Demand

The US Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that data science will continue to be among the fastest growing occupations for the near future. Glassdoor ranked Data Science as the best job in America for four years in a row. The demand for data scientist is continuously growing worldwide in a wide range of industries including healthcare, medicine, finance, information technology, manufacturing, telecommunication and many others. Employers seek professionals with strong skills in data science. The proposed program will provide the students with the skill set required to be globally competitive in data science and related areas.

Data Science applies statistical and computational techniques, algorithms, and theories of computer science and mathematics to solve problems arising from the analysis of big data. It usually focuses on development of computationally intensive data mining, pattern recognition, machine learning, and visualization techniques to increase understanding of large data. Knowledge of modeling, analysis, interpretation, and explaining data has become the basic requirement for wide areas of science, engineering, medicine, agriculture, and related areas.