Businesses await graduates from Data Science
The demand for graduates in Data Science is significant, although no one has graduated yet.
Analytical skills, knowledge of big data and technical ingenuity. The combination of these three skills is in demand in a multitude of different companies. This also applies to Ordbogen A/S in Odense, where, among other things, they specialise in providing effective and easily accessible dictionaries online.
– We know that our products continuously must be made more intelligent, says Jeppe Kjeldsen, COO of Ordbogen A/S.
In addition to ordbogen.com, the company has also developed the learning platform grammatip.com and the writing assistant writeassistant.com, which together have generated huge amounts of data.
Therefore, Jeppe Kjeldsen also believes that with the right use of their data, they can continue their constant development of the product line.
– We believe that Data Science graduates may be the right solution for us. Partly because they understand and can use data, and partly because they may have combined their Master's degree with a Bachelor's degree in another field, which also fits into our business area, explains Jeppe Kjeldsen.
Peter Schneider-Kamp, who is the head of the Master's degree programme in Data Science at the University of Southern Denmark, SDU, has heard similar statements from many other companies interested in utilising their data.
– There is no doubt that many companies can hardly wait for our first graduates, he says.
A new type of graduates
– Unfortunately, we will have no graduates before the summer of 2021, because the Master's programme is still almost brand new, says Peter Schneider-Kamp.
The first students of the Master's degree programme in Data Science began at SDU in 2019. The programme is structured so that everyone with a Bachelor's or Professional Bachelor's degree can apply to the programme, precisely because graduates with knowledge of analysis and application of big data are in demand across all industries and sectors.
– This applies to banks, consultancies, startups, audit houses, production companies and public workplaces. We are experiencing great demand for our upcoming graduates from virtually all fronts, says Peter Schneider-Kamp.
When supply cannot keep up with demand
A few weeks before the national application deadline for admission to Master's degree programmes, the IT University of Copenhagen announced that due to financial reasons they had to postpone an anticipated Master's degree programme in Data Science, which was otherwise scheduled to open in 2020.
– It is such a shame. Both for those who had wanted to apply and for the IT University of Copenhagen, because the demand for these graduates will be high across the entire country, says Peter Schneider-Kamp from SDU.
And those who seek higher education appear to have noticed the possibilities within this particular field. That is the opinion of Student Counsellor Rune Wulff Christensen of SDU, where applications have been received from considerably more people than the programme can accept.
– We have not yet processed the applications, but it seems that the class of 2020 will be more than filled, he says.
– In fact, we have an expectation that we will need to expand the capacity of the programme in the near future, adds Peter Schneider-Kamp.