We're excited to learn that you've decided to declare a minor in data science! To learn more, visit the How to Declare the Data Science Minor page on our site!

This is a great question, and some of it depends on your home school. Generally, data science will provide you with a broad skillset and build your capacity for computational thinking. These are highly valuable skills as you traverse your academic path. Thus, declaring the DS minor and completing the coursework early in your academic career will pay dividends as you continue in your major degree program, and likely have benefits as you apply for summer internships or jobs. Most home schools allow you to declare the DS Minor as early in your academic career as you'd like (see A&S exceptions below).

Additionally, data science courses are in incredibly high demand, and during registration, several DS courses will initially provide preference to students who have officially declared the Data Science Minor. In this case, declaring the minor sooner rather than later is again advantageous. It is always possible to drop a declared minor.

If your home school is A&S, make sure you're particularly mindful and aware of the rules and regulations regarding Minor programs. First, you can declare the DS Minor starting in your second semester, but not before. Additionally, minor declarations must be submitted at least two weeks before registration begins; otherwise, the minor declaration will not be processed until after registration. The DS Minor does not make accomodations or special enrollment if your enrollment was submitted too late, and you will retain your original position on any waitlists during registration. 

The great news is that DS Minor courses are offered each semester, so almost all students will have additional opportunities to enroll in all DS courses. DS Minor courses are extremely popular, and approaches to maximize your chances of successfully enrolling in DS Minor courses during registration include:

• Enroll as soon as possible as soon as your registration window opens
• If you're unable to enroll, waitlist. Do not remove yourself from waitlist unless you are sure you no longer want to enroll in the course. You cannot be added back in at your original waitlist position; you will join the waitlist again at the end of it.
• If you're on the waitlist, ensure that you have appropriate Drop If Enrolled settings on any courses that would conflict with the target DS course if you were enrolled from the waitlist. Ensure you have appropriate courses set to drop if enrolling you from the waitlist would cause you to exceed 18 credit hours.
• If you successfully register for the course, don't drop the course unless you are sure you no longer want to enroll in the course. The DS Minor will not add you back to the course if the course is already full or there is a waitlist.

One thing to know is that any seat reservations for DS Minor students applies to DS Minor courses only; courses in other departments are subject to their own seat reservation needs. Second, if your home school is A&S and you declared the minor within two weeks of registration (the A&S declaration moratorium period), your declaration will not be processed until after registration. Be diligent in learning the rules and regulations within your home school to avoid these issues. Finally, while we try to hold as many seats for students who have declared the minor as we can, not all seats are reserved.

Yes, and we are delighted to welcome you into the fold of data science! You can declare starting the second semester of your first year. As noted in the previous question, this can be important to do since some popular core DS courses will give some preference to students who have officially declared Data Science as a minor.

This question is wholly dependent on the courses that you've already taken, the required coursework that you need to complete for your major and other degree programs, the regulations of your home school, and the compatibility of courses within the last year of your undergraduate academic career. Please visit the DS Minor requirements page to help you assess your current positioning for completing the Minor. A quick way to get started is to use your Degree Audit on YES to identify the rest of your major requirements, the YES course schedules to estimate which courses are likely to be offered in the upcoming AY, and use the DS minor requirements page to determine which requirements for the DS Minor you still have left to fulfill. Please feel free to reach out to the DS MInor administrative office at undergraduate.datascience@vanderbilt.edu to discuss further, and bring these materials to any resultant meeting for discussion.

DS 1000 is intended as an introduction to data science for first and second year students, and is best suited for students early in their academic career, particularly those who have not taken any data science or computational thinking courses. For this reason, initial registration in the course is limited, and seniors cannot directly enroll in the course at the beginning of registration, only waitlist. If you are a DS Minor and your program requirements are nearly completed, an excellent and recommended alternate choice is to instead enroll in an elective from the listed electives on our website, which can be used to satisfy the DS 1000 introductory requirement. This is a pathway that allows you to reposition these 3 credit hours towards more depth in data science rather than towards introductory material.

Otherwise, during the initial registration period, you should waitlist the course as soon as you can. Although this does not guarantee a position in the course, when the course fully opens during the second phase of registration, waitlisted students will be enrolled off of the waitlist as seats become available.

The Data Science Minor is currently in the School of Engineering. 

All courses with a DS prefix count as courses within each of the colleges, including A&S. If you are an A&S student, and are taking a course that is cross-listed, make sure you enroll in the one with the DS prefix. Electives outside of A&S without the DS prefix will generally not count as A&S courses, so plan accordingly.

Students electing an undergraduate minor in Data Science must follow academic regulations regarding minors in their home college, including but not limited to regulations regarding unique hours. The unique credit hour rule is specific to the College of Arts and Science and Peabody College. The School of Engineering and Blair School of Music do not have a unique credit hour rule. The Data Science minor cannot waive this rule. Please talk with your academic advisor about how to satisfy these requirements.

See What Programming Course To Take? In general, students interested in data science and scientific computing (not in computer science per se) should learn Python (and R).

On YES, to select all courses approved for credit in the Data Science minor offered in a given semester, select the “Advanced” link next to the search box, select the “Class Attributes” drop-down box on the bottom right of the advanced search page, and then select “Eligible for Data Science” to find all courses. (Note that these course tags will not all be in place on YES until the registration period for Fall 2021 begins.)

New courses, special topics courses, or graduate-level courses that seem related to data science could count as electives. Contact the Director of Undergraduate Data Science to request consideration.

It does, as a prerequisite to CS 2204, which counts towards the minor. CS / DS 1100 was created as a new single-semester programming course for the Data Science Minor. It roughly has 2/3 the content of CS 1104 and 1/3 the content of CS 2204. While CS / DS 1100 counts as a single semester of programming for the minor, we strongly encourage students interested in data science, and in using data science tools and techniques, to take two semesters of programming in Python (CS / DS 1100 or CS 1104, followed by CS 2204). If you have taken CS 1104, you can take CS 1100, but you will only receive a total of four credits for the two courses. See also What Programming Course To Take?

After taking CS 1104, we do recommend you take CS 2204. If you are interested in data science, a broader experience in Python in desirable (in fact, we recommend that students having taken CS 1100 try to take CS 2204 as well). CS/DS 1100 and 1104 have significant overlap (both are introductions to programming using Python). That said, it is permissible to take CS/DS 1100 after having taken CS 1104. You will only get 1 (out of 3) credit hours for CS/DS 1100 (after having taken CS 1104), but the combination of CS/DS 1100 and 1104 will satisfy the DS minor programming requirement. Note that if you enroll in three 3-hour courses and CS/DS 1100 (after having taken CS 1104) it will look like you are registered for 12 credit hours during registration and at the start of the semester, but your credit hours will be reduced to only 10 credit hours (because the credits for CS/DS 1100 will be cut back to 1 after the add/drop period). Enrolling in fewer than 12 credit hours can have significant consequences on financial aid and potentially on visa status for international students. Please be mindful of this.

Nothing. They are the same course. They meet the same time in the same place and are taught by the same instructor. They are just cross-listed.

You have two options. You can either take CS 2201 (in C++) or take CS 1100 (in Python). Of course, you could also take CS 1104 and 2204 (in Python). CS 1100, 2201, and 2204 all satisfy the programming requirement for the minor. Note that CS 2201 is a prerequisite for many upper-level CS courses (as well as required for the CS major and minor). For more information, see What Programming Course To Take?

No. They are listed under both because a student who takes one of the other machine learning courses to satisfy the core requirement (CS/DS 3262 or CS 4262) can also take ECON 3750 or MATH 3670 as an elective; the content is sufficiently different that both can count towards the minor, but one course cannot double-count for two minor requirements.

Yes (see above). ECON 3750 and MATH 3670 are sufficiently different from CS 3262 or CS 4262 (and from each other) that you can take these as electives. In fact, you could take ECON 3750 to satisfy the machine learning requirement and then take MATH 3670 as an elective.

CS 3262 can count towards the Data Science minor. CS 3262 does not count directly towards the Computer Science major requirements but could be used as either a tech elective or open elective for Computer Science majors.

It does, as a prerequisite to MATH 2821, which counts towards the minor. The two-course sequence of MATH 2820 and MATH 2821 counts towards the Data Science Minor; the two-course sequence is required because MATH 2820 goes deep into mathematical foundations of probability ad statistics concepts, but does not by itself cover the breadth of topics of other introductory statistics courses. This two-course sequence provides an excellent introduction to mathematical statistics.

Yes, you are welcome to do research for course credit, and it's a fantastic way to apply the skills you've learned in the classroom to real-world applications. To do research for credit in data science, you enroll in DS 3850 or DS 3851 if it's your second semester of DS research. 3 credit hours of DS 3850 research also fulfill the elective requirement for the DS Minor. You'll want to start the enrollment process as early as possible, even before registration begins to make sure your contract is approved before the end of the add/drop deadline. Learn more about research requirements, how to enroll, and how to find an advisor on the DS 3850 Research in Data Science page on our site! 

A great idea! There's no better way to deepen your data science knowledge than by doing. Visit our Research and Immersion Overview page to learn how you can begin your journey with hands-on data science.

If you have questions about the Data Science Minor or Immersion opportunities in data science, please email us: undergraduate.datascience@vanderbilt.edu

The DS Minor is housed in the School of Engineering. Please reach out to the Dean of Undergraduate Studies in the VUSE Dean's Office.