Data Science, Gender, Interior Spaces Design Among New Undergraduate Studies this Fall
This fall, the School of Global Affairs and Public Policy and the School of Sciences and Engineering added new majors, minors and graduate programs to their curricula. At the undergraduate level, there is a Bachelor of Science in data science, minor in gender studies and minor in design of interior spaces. At the graduate level, there is a Master of Science in architecture, Master of Science in petroleum, Master of Engineering in petroleum and a graduate diploma in global affairs.
The new programs help expand the scope of AUC's liberal arts curriculum and give way for advanced studies in sciences and engineering.
The undergraduate data science major is the first-of-its-kind in Egypt and the Arab world. Data science is a rapidly growing field due to technological advances and the growing availability of huge and complex real-world data.
What exactly will data science students learn? “Data science is also known as data mining," said Ali Hadi, distinguished University professor and chair of the Department of Mathematics and Actuarial Science. "It is the link between the mine, or the available data, and the decision makers. Whenever you have data, you need a data scientist, just like corporations need accountants to prepare their financial statements" to extract the data from the mine and transform it into useful knowledge in any field.
The profession requires skill sets in mathematics, probability, statistics, machine learning, computational science and programming languages as well as an understanding of real-world problem solving.
There is an enrollment cap of 20 students per academic year for the major, and there are so far nine declared data science majors. Hadi said that students have been expressing their excitement with continuing the program.
With the new gender studies minor, students will be able to learn basic knowledge of gender identity, representation and theory from a cross-cultural perspective. "Gender and women's studies constitutes a core offering in any liberal arts curriculum," said Martina Rieker, director of the Cynthia Nelson Institute for Gender and Women's Studies.
The minor will consist of courses in anthropology, Arabic studies, English and comparative literature, film, history and sociology, in addition to occasional special topics courses offered in philosophy and political science.
The full list of new academic programs is below:
School of Global Affairs and Public Policy:
Graduate Diploma in Global Affairs
School of Sciences and Engineering:
Minor in Design of Interior spaces (with Department of the Arts)
Data Science (Bachelor of Science)
Architecture (Master of Science)
Petroleum (Master of Engineering)
Visit the undergraduate and graduate course catalogs to view all of AUC's academic programs.
