Skills this Program Teaches

The specific skill set of each graduate is dependent on their choice of electives. This abbreviated list is intended to show a general view the skills a student who graduates from the DSA program should be proficient in.

HARD SKILLS:
Selecting proper technology, tools and methods to analyze data
Data Acquisition

• Sourcing spatial and aspatial (tabular) data
• Using Open Data sources
• Web scraping
• Ethical and legal regulations of data

Data Management

• Organizing and maintaining data
• Data storage
  • Relational databases
  • Database design
• Cleaning data
• Data integration
  • Working with many types of data from different fields (bioinformatics, healthcare, urban planning, journalism, etc.)
• Data manipulation

Data visualization and reporting

• Maps
• Charts and graphs
• Dashboard

Software and programming

• Python
• SQL
• Excel
• SAS
• SPSS
• Tableau

Mathematical Skills and Concepts

• Basic mathematical concepts in Data Science
• Statistics
• Basic Machine learning models
• Basics of Spatial Analysis (e.g. clusters, hot/cold spots, pattern analysis)

SOFT SKILLS:

• Information and data literacy
• Using industry-specific terminology appropriately
• Working with diversity, cross-cultural and/or multi-national systems and projects
• Time management
• Exercising leadership
• Networking and building professional relationships
• Behaving ethically
• Communication to lay audience
• Oral communication
• Writing reports
• Adapting effectively to changing conditions
• Participating as a member of a team
• Developing professional workplace attitudes and behavior
• Developing individual responsibility
• Project management
• Written communication