group of male students working in cyber lab

Data Science

Bachelor of Science

The Big Data revolution promises to transform the world. Businesses are mining data about their customer's preferences. Organizations are analyzing data about their business processes to design more efficient processes. Data analysis is transforming the fundamental scientific process from a top-down, theory-driven process into a data-driven process. It's little surprise that “data scientist” is regularly named the top in-demand job in Glassdoor’s annual survey.

Mercyhurst’s Data Science undergraduate major is designed to equip you with the skills you need to become a data scientist. This multidisciplinary program combines techniques from computer science and statistics to clean, manage, analyze and interpret data. Data Science majors will be well prepared for careers in a number of fields, skilled at determining actionable insights about the meaning of data for decision-makers in businesses, public agencies and nonprofits.

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Integrative Experience

Data science has applications across nearly every academic and professional discipline, from the humanities and social sciences to the natural and health sciences.
Career Opportunities

Nearly every industry publication and research firm—from IBM to Harvard Business Review—is reporting that demand for data scientists is far outstripping supply.
Cyber Education

The Federal Resources Corporation Cyber Education Center is an 8,000-square-foot state-of-the-art cyber training and mitigation facility providing classroom and experiential learning spaces on the campus of Mercyhurst University.

Data Science is a field at the intersection of computer science and statistics, which makes it more exciting than computer science because you're applying computer algorithms to real-world problems and more employable than statistics.
Data Science is the perfect second major with any art, science, humanities, business, or social and natural science field.
Through real-world projects and hands-on experiences with specialized tools and software, you’ll learn to think critically about the theoretical underpinnings and practical applications of the field.
Data Scientist has been named the best job in America for three years running, with a median base salary of $110,000.

Our CIRAT program works to hone and professionalize the skills of students in Intelligence Studies and Computer Information Science programs. As a nonprofit arm of Mercyhurst University, CIRAT develops opportunities with business and government entities through contracts, grants, and academic partnerships. Students of all academic levels can participate in CIRAT to apply their skills in a variety of collaborative intelligence and data-driven projects. By participating in CIRAT, Mercyhurst students gain a competitive edge; upon graduation, they already have applicable, hands-on experience working with national security organizations, U.S. government agencies, private sector businesses, and more.

The Federal Resources Corporation Cyber Education Center includes four separate spaces:

A Cyber Security Lab
A Network Operations Center
Two Computer Labs

The Cyber Security Lab features 20 individual terminals, each outfitted with high-end computing power and large monitors. The lab operates on an independent network with its own servers and firewalls, completely isolated from the campus network. In addition, the lab features virtual forensic workstations, mobile devices for exploitation tests, threat-analysis software packages, and other relevant platforms.

The Network Operations Center is staffed and operated by Federal Resources Corporation. In this space, this prestigious Erie-based firm will provide experiential learning opportunities for Mercyhurst students to conduct projects on behalf of real-world clients.

The Computer Labs provide hands-on education to undergraduate and graduate students in Mercyhurst’s cyber, data science and intelligence programs.

“The shortage of data scientists is becoming a serious constraint in some sectors.” – Harvard Business Review

Data science skills, especially those related to machine learning and Big Data, are among the most challenging for businesses to recruit for, which makes comprehensive data science training at the undergraduate level remarkably valuable. For our majors, the business landscape offers tremendous opportunities for job stability, career mobility and excellent learning potential.

Consider these findings from “The Quant Crunch: How the Demand for Data Science Skills is Disrupting the Job Market,” a joint report from Burning Glass Technologies, Business-Higher Education Forum and IBM:

By 2020, the number of Data Science and Analytics job listings is projected to grow by nearly 364,000 listings to approximately 2,720,000.
Demand for data scientists and data engineers is projected to grow 39 percent.
Data science/analytics jobs remain open 5 days longer than average.

We have two clubs in our department! They are:

Data Science Club

The purpose of this organization is to promote technology transfer of current trends in market to college setup. Create awareness on importance of data driven decision making in market. Conduct and promote tech events, hackathons, and boot camp to promote data science and to support data science students with career development.

Cyber Threat Research Analysis Club

The purpose of the organization is to research, analyze, and increase awareness of the current cyber threat environment. Through goal-based learning, the club aims at developing skills and expertise required to understand, assess, and deter cyber threats to national security and/or any entity’s continuity.

Minors