Graduate Certificate in Applied Data Science

A Three-Course Certificate for Berkeley Grad Students

Learn the tools, methods, and conceptual approaches that support modern data analysis and decision-making in professional and applied research settings.

The Graduate Certificate in Applied Data Science introduces the tools, methods, and conceptual approaches used to support modern data analysis and decision-making in professional and applied research settings. It exposes students to the challenges of working with data (e.g., asking a good question, inference and causality, decision-making) as well as to the new tools and techniques for data analytics (machine learning, data mining, and more).

The certificate is particularly designed to meet the needs of the graduate students in Berkeley’s professional schools — both professional master’s students and doctoral students — as well as graduate students in the social sciences and the arts & humanities.

A Foundation in Modern Data Analysis

The need for expertise in data analytics continues to grow in all organizations and disciplines. Graduate students in every field are now working with data from new sources: websites, electronic medical records, transaction records, sensor networks, smart phones, and digitized records and documents. The analytical tools and methods traditionally used to derive insights from structured and well-curated data sets (census, surveys, and administrative data) are not sufficient for this new, unstructured and often user-generated data.

The Graduate Certificate in Applied Data Science provides hands-on practice working with unstructured and user-generated data to identify new ways to inform decision-making. The curriculum educates professionals and scholars to be intelligent consumers of data science techniques in a variety of domains, with a foundation of skills for applying these techniques in their own domains.

Curriculum

The certificate requires three graduate-level courses, taken from the approved lists:

  1. An introductory data science class

  2. A course in analytical methods and techniques of data science

  3. An additional elective: either a domain-specific data science course or a second methods course.

Courses must be taken for a letter grade and completed with a grade of B or higher.

Complete course list

Prerequisites

  • Be registered and enrolled in a graduate degree at UC Berkeley

  • Be in good academic standing

  • Meet course and subject matter prerequisites for courses taken in the certificate program, including Python programming and basic statistics knowledge.

Apply

Students apply for the certificate in the second half of the semester in which they complete the certificate requirements or later.

Completion applications are reviewed three times per year. Students graduating at the end of spring must apply by May 1. Students graduating at the end of summer must apply by August 1. Students graduating at the end of fall must apply by December 1.

Apply now

What is a Graduate Certificate?

A UC Berkeley Graduate Certificate is a structured sequence of courses and requirements which focuses on a specialty or area of expertise not offered by a regular degree program. The Graduate Certificate in Applied Data Science is an “Option 2” certificate program. Certificates are designed to complement a student’s regular degree program.

In general, current UC Berkeley graduate students in good standing are eligible for the certificate*; students are advised to check with their departmental advisors regarding their individual eligibility.

Upon graduation, you will be issued a certificate in addition to your diploma, and completion of the certificate program will be noted on your official transcript.

* Students enrolled in the Master of Information and Data Science (MIDS) program or in UC Berkeley–UCSF joint programs are not eligible for the certificate.

What Should I Do When I Complete the Certificate Coursework?

In the second half of the semester in which you expect to complete the certificate coursework requirements, you must submit the Certificate Completion Application. All three courses must be either completed or currently in progress.

Questions?

Email studentaffairs@ischool.berkeley.edu with questions about the certificate.

Last updated:

August 30, 2022