Data science is an interdisciplinary field with roots in applied mathematics, statistics and computer science. The Bachelor of Science in Data Science seeks to meet the increased employment demands across many industries and research fields.
Data Science majors will develop quantitative and computational skills to solve real-world problems. For example, data scientists are responsible for creating and maintaining dashboards in a pandemic, predicting traffic patterns to improve driver safety and helping apps like Uber Eats optimize food delivery. Students can customize the degree to fit their interests by selecting a focus area of their choice to create a degree with practical applications.
Working with their academic advisers, data science students will take classes in a discipline related to their interests and career goals. Students can choose their area of emphasis among a variety of areas including the social sciences, humanities, and sciences. Examples, include astronomy, biology, criminology, geography, geology, GIS, physics, public health, psychology, and sociology.
Major Learning Outcomes
Learning Outcome 1: Students will communicate data science workflows in both written and oral forms.
Outcome 1.1 Students will demonstrate their ability to develop and use appropriate data science techniques to address ‘science’ (subject matter) topics and questions.
Outcome 1.2 Students will communicate the biases and other implications of the data and analysis.
Outcome 1.3 Students will prepare a clear and concise written project and orally present a data science workflow and analysis effectively and professionally.
Learning Outcome 2: Students will understand and demonstrate the programming and technological aspects of a data science workflow
Outcome 2.1 Students will develop workflows using the languages and platforms common in data science practice (eg. R and Python, Rstudio and JupyterLab)
Outcome 2.2 Students will demonstrate their ability to acquire and manipulate data via a variety of platforms (eg. databases to cloud computing)
Outcome 2.3 Students will demonstrate their ability to use technologies for collaboration (eg. Git and GitHub)
Learning Outcome 3: Students will demonstrate their ability to visualize and model data
Outcome 3.1 Students will demonstrate visualization of data from simple plots for smaller data sets to visualizations for big data
Outcome 3.2 Students will demonstrate their ability to use current machine learning and other data science modeling methods appropriately and understand the underlying statistical and mathematical concepts.
*Price shown is for indicative purposes, please check with institution
August 2025
Morgantown
Morgantown,
Morgantown,
West Virginia,
26506, South, United States
*Price shown is for indicative purposes, please check with institution
January 2025
Eberly College of Arts and Sciences
201 Woodburn Hall,
MORGANTOWN,
West Virginia,
26506, United States
First Time Freshmen are admitted to the major directly. For the timely completion of the degree, it is recommended that students have a minimum MATH ACT of 22, a MATH SAT of 540, or an ALEKS score of 45.
Students transferring from another WVU major with fewer than 29 credits must have completed MATH 126 with a grade of C- or higher; students who have completed 30 or more credits must have completed MATH 154 or MATH 155 with C- or higher and have earned a 2.0 overall GPA.
English Language Requirements: TOEFL Internet-Based = 79; IELTS = 6.5; Duolingo English Test = 105, Pearson Test of English Academic = 53. In some cases, SAT reading or ACT English test scores may be used to meet English Proficiency.
*There may be different IELTS requirements depending on your chosen course.
WVU graduates enjoy a remarkably high employment rate of 93 percent within two years of completing their program.