Hometown: Houston, TX
Major: Data Science
Domain Emphasis: Applied Mathematics and Modeling
Data Science in Six Words: The 21st Century's Scientific Method, or Questions, Exploration, Discoveries, and more Questions.
Jeevan knew his freshman year that he wanted to be a data science major. So he declared as soon as it became available in the fall of 2018, and he was among the first data science graduates that December. After spending some time traveling in Europe, he began working as a data scientist at Facebook.
My first day in Data 8 as a freshman, Ani Adhikari introduced the major and promised every freshman they’d be able to graduate with it. Since then I just kept my fingers crossed - I was actually undeclared entering my senior year. I just took courses that seemed interesting, mostly in computer science and stats. Fortunately things worked out, and the data science major was released in time.
My favorite part about the major is how broad it is. You have so many options, you never really have to take a course you’re not interested in, especially with all the domain emphases.
As for my favorite class - probably IEOR 142. It’s a machine learning class that has less emphasis on math and more on practical application.
I feel really fortunate that the major was released just in time, and it feels special to be part of a small cohort of inaugural data science majors. The major is quickly becoming one of the most popular at Cal and being one of the first is pretty cool.