Data has become ubiquitous in everyday life, impacting every profession, from entry-level office workers to CEOs, from team coaches to general managers, from accountants to CFOs. Businesses now have data available to them at a scale that is historically unprecedented; harnessing this data for insight on what customers want provides them with a competitive advantage. Traditional companies (Ford, Walmart, General Electric, etc.) today pride themselves as being transformed to big-data businesses. Furthermore, data permeates all aspects of science, engineering, and other academic disciplines.
The field of Data Science has recently emerged as a new academic discipline studying data itself. Data Science lies at the intersection of Computer Science and Statistics. By creating a Data Science undergraduate degree we aim to educate the future data scientists and leaders in this field, by building knowledge bottom-up, covering both essential knowledge from Computer Science (in managing data) and Statistics (in analyzing data), and integrating this knowledge with applications to other domains and to real-life problems. The Data Science major provides a comprehensive program studying how data can be collected, transformed, analyzed, and used to solve problems across academic disciplines and applications.
Curriculum
Through its interdisciplinary nature, the Data Science major (B.S.) offers a great opportunity to serve as a pathway for professional careers in various areas. A distinguishing characteristic of our Data Science program in that its students will complete course sequences in other departments (e.g., economics, business, sociology, earth sciences, biology, bioinformatics, and astronomy) where they will learn how Data Science principles are applied in these domains.
Fueled by the explosion of data, Data Science jobs have proliferated and the demand for data scientists is extremely high; moreover, this demand is expected to be strong for years to come. A recent McKinsey report forecasted a need for hundreds of thousands of data scientists in the next decade. Three-fifths of the data science and analytics jobs are in the finance and insurance, professional services, and information technology sectors, but the manufacturing, health care, and retail sectors also are hiring significant numbers of data scientists. According to Glassdoor, a recruiting site, Data Scientist has been among the top jobs in the US for various years, attracting high salaries. We thus expect that the Data Science program will provide new opportunities and serve well the UCR community.
Combined B.S. plus M.S. five-year programs are offered in bioengineering, chemical engineering, computer engineering, computer science, electrical engineering, environmental engineering, and mechanical engineering. A combined B.S. computer engineering plus M.S. computer science five-year program is also offered.
September 2025
Marlan and Rosemary Bourns College of Engineering
446 Winston Chung Hall,
900 University Avenue,
RIVERSIDE,
California,
92521, United States
To meet minimum requirements to be considered for UCR selection, you must earn a minimum GPA of 3.4 on a 4.0 scale (equivalent to an 85 percent on a 100 percent scale). The assessment of a qualifying GPA is based on “a–g” courses (required high school/secondary classes) completed in years 10 and 11. If the high school/secondary school offers a different curriculum, your academic achievement will be based on that educational system’s grading scale.
English Language proficiency
You can demonstrate proficiency by meeting any of the following exam benchmarks. Keep in mind that you must complete one of these exams by December of your final year of high school/secondary school.
Score 3, 4 or 5 on the AP examination in English Language and Composition, or English Literature and Composition
Score 6 or 7 on the IB Standard Level examination in English (Language A only)
Score 5, 6 or 7 on the IB Higher Level examination in English (Language A only)
Score 6.5 or higher on the International English Language Testing System (IELTS)
Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) examination: Internet-based test (iBT): Minimum score of 80 or better; Paper-delivered test: Minimum score of 60 or better.
Duolingo English Test (DET): Minimum score of 115
*There may be different IELTS requirements depending on your chosen course.