Certificate in Applied Data Science

The Certificate in Applied Data Science introduces the tools, methods, and conceptual approaches used to support modern data analysis and decision making in professional and applied research settings. Students become familiar with the challenges of working with data — asking a good question, inference and causality, decision making — as well as how to best utilize the new tools and techniques for data analytics, including machine learning and data mining.

The need for expertise in data analytics continues to grow in all organizations and disciplines. Graduate students in every field are now working with data from new sources: web sites, electronic medical records, transaction records, sensor networks, smartphones, and digitized records and documents. The analytical tools and methods traditionally used to derive insights from structured and well-curated data sets — such as the census, surveys, and administrative data — are not sufficient for this new, unstructured, and often user-generated data.

The Certificate in Applied Data Science provides hands-on practice working with unstructured and user-provided data to identify new ways to inform decision making. The curriculum educates professionals and scholars to be intelligent consumers of data science techniques in a variety of domains, with a foundation of skills for applying these techniques in their own professional spaces.

Once they have completed all of their required foundational courses during the first two to three terms in the program,master’s in cybersecurity (MICS) students are eligible to start taking course work that will count toward the certificate. Students are required to complete all of their certificate course work prior to enrolling in Capstone in their final semester.

The certificate requires three 3-unit courses that students must complete with a letter grade of B or higher.

Students will take:

An introduction to data science course:

Research Design and Application for Data and Analysis

3 UNITS

A course in analytical methods and techniques of data science:

Applied Machine Learning for Cybersecurity

3 UNITS

An additional elective (choose one):

Data Visualization

3 UNITS

Experiments and Causal Inference

3 UNITS

Natural Language Processing and Deep Learning

3 UNITS

Standard MICS tuition fees will apply for the additional courses required for the Graduate Certificate in Applied Data Science, and we anticipate that students will need to be enrolled for six semesters in order to complete the required 33 units to earn both their MICS degree and the Graduate Certificate in Applied Data Science.

All currently enrolled MICS students who are interested in pursuing the Graduate Certificate in Applied Data Science must apply and be admitted. Applications are open three times a year for MICS students. For admitted/enrolled MICS students, please contact your Student Success Advisor to discuss the application process and deadlines. For prospective MICS students, please contact an Admissions Counselor for more information at admissions@cybersecurity.berkeley.edu or  1-855-860-5259.

You can also fill out our form to request more information.