Course summary

Data plays an increasingly important role in modern life, yet the talent to extract information and value from complex data is scarce. This course is for you if you want to use your mathematical and numerical skills to build your career. During the course you will develop an informed and critical appreciation of scientific and industrial developments in data science and analytics. The difference between this course and the MSc Data Analytics course is that this one features a professional placement. Students are responsible for finding their own work placement, with the help of our award-winning Careers and Placements Team, who have helped so many of our students to secure placement and work opportunities. Aston is 3rd in the UK for the number of students taking a sandwich year (HESA 2018), showing just how much we encourage students getting professional experience and how successful we are at enabling them to secure work placements. Take a look at our specific placement information and support. Please find more about the time frame under ‘Learning, teaching and assessment’. What you’ll learn You’ll gain a thorough grounding in the fundamental concepts to understand the data lifecycle, including problem formulation, data collection and cleaning, exploratory data analysis and visualisation, statistical inference and decision making. A range of methods will be covered including algorithmic and computational modelling and statistical machine learning. You’ll also undertake a research project on a subject of your choice, where you’ll apply the knowledge you’ve gained to produce high quality independent work.