The Certificate in Data Science is designed for students majoring in disciplines other than Statistics & Data Science to acquire the knowledge to promote mature use of data analysis throughout society. Students gain the necessary knowledge base and useful skills to tackle real-world data analysis challenges.
Students who complete the requirements for the certificate are prepared to engage in data analysis in the humanities, social sciences, and sciences and engineering and are able to manage and investigate quantitative data research and report on that data.
Registering for the certificate
Students may sign up for the certificate via the Yale Hub. Note that some classes may not be listed in the registration form, and that’s fine. Your Degree Audit may answer some of your questions. The same form can also be used to un-register.
Students are encouraged to take an introductory course, such as one of S&DS 1000, 10X, or 123 (or an introductory data analysis course in another department), before taking certificate courses. This is described as the “prerequisite” in the YCPS.
Questions about the certificate should be directed to Jay Emerson (john.emerson@yale.edu).
Requirements
Students are required to earn at least B- in each course counted towards the certificate (or Pass for courses taken in Spring 2020). No course may be used to fulfill more than one requirement of the certificate. Also, no course may be counted towards both the certificate and a major.
The certificate in Data Science requires five course credits:
- One Probability and Statistical Theory course: choose from S&DS 2380, 2400 (note the semester change, 2024–2025), 2410, or 2420. Advanced students may substitute S&DS 3510 or 3640, or EENG 431.
- Two Statistical Methodology and Data Analysis courses: choose from S&DS 2200 or 2300 (but not both 2200 and 2300), 2420, 3120, 3610, 3630, or PLSC 3490. Econ 136 may be substituted for S&DS 2420.
- One Computation & Machine Learning course: choose from S&DS 2620, 2650, 3170, 3550, 3650, CPSC 223, CPSC 477, CPSC 381, PHYS 378, or PLSC 468. CPSC 323 may be substituted for CPSC 223.
- One of the “Data Science in a Discipline Area” courses approved for the data science certificate (please refer to the course list).
The “Data Science in a Discipline Area” courses for the data science certificate are courses that expose students to how data are gathered and used within a discipline outside of S&DS. The courses currently approved for this purpose are:
- ANTH 376 (Observing and Measuring Behavior)
- ASTR 255 (Research Methods in Astrophysics)
- ASTR 330 (Scientific Computing in Astrophysics)
- ASTR 356 (Astrostatistics and Data Mining)
- BENG 469 (Single-cell Biologies, Technologies, and Analysis)
- ECON 438 (Applied Econometrics: Politics, Sports, Microeconomics)
- ECON 439 (Applied Econometrics: Macroeconomic and Finance Forecasting)
- EVST 290 (Geographic Information Systems)
- EVST 362 (Observing Earth from Space)
- GLBL 191 (Research Design and Survey Analysis)
- LING 227 (Language and Computation I)
- LING 229 (Language and Computation II)
- LING 234 (Quantitative Linguistics)
- LING 380 (Neural Networks and Language)
- MB&B 452 / MCDB 452 / S&DS 352 (Biomedical Data Science, Mining and Modeling)
- MGT 817 (Sports Analytics)
- MGMT 595 (Quantitative Investing)
- PLSC 340 / S&DS 315 (Measuring Impact and Opinion Change)
- PLSC 341 / GLBL 195 (Logic of Randomized Experiments in Political Science)
- PLSC 438 (Applied Quantitative Research Design)
- PLSC 454 (Data Science for Politics and Policy)
- PSYC 235 (Research Methods in Psychology)
- PSYC 238 (Research Methods in Decision Making and Happiness)
- PSYC 258 / NSCI 258 (Computational Methods in Human Neuroscience)
- PSYC 438 / NSCI 441 (Computational Models of Human Behavior)
- S&DS 171 (YData: Text Data Science: An Introduction) if taken in Spring 2020 or later
- S&DS 172 (YData: Data Science for Political Campaigns) if taken in Spring 2020 or later
- S&DS 173 (YData: Analysis of Baseball Data) if taken in Spring 2020 or later
- S&DS 174 (YData: Statistics in the Media)
- S&DS 175 (YData: Measuring Culture)
- S&DS 176 (YData: Humanities Data Mining)
- S&DS 177 (YData: Covid-19 Behavorial Impacts)
- S&DS 178 (YData: Sociogenomics)
- S&DS 179 (YData: Data Science Applications in Insurance)
- S&DS 180 (YData: Data Science Applications in Banking)
- S&DS 181 (YData: Data Science for Environmental Metrics)
- S&DS 224 (Dice, Data, and Decisions)
- S&DS 280 (Neural Data Analysis)
Don’t see a “Data Analysis in a Discipline Area” course you’re interested in?
We’re open to adding more courses to the list (to suggest a course, students or faculty may email john.emerson@yale.edu. Suggested courses should expose students to how data are gathered and used within a discipline and that teach students about the use of data within the domain (including issues of data collection and handling messy data). They should not be introductory statistics or probability courses within that discipline, nor should they be courses that focus on statistical methods for analyzing data sets that have already been cleaned. Examples of courses that might be terrific courses but do not satisfy the requirements of the Data Analysis in a Discipline Area include: BENG 449, BIS 633, CPSC 150, CPSC 477, EENG 439, EP&E 336, FES 611, GLBL 550, PLSC 349, and SOCY 133.
Restrictions, suggestions, and caveats
- The department recommends that most students take a 100-level course (some may take 2200), followed by 2380 or 2400, 2300, and one of 3610 or 3630.
- Students considering majoring in Statistics and Data Science should be very careful about which courses they take. Some courses that count towards the certificate (right now, 2400) do NOT count towards the major.
- Students may not count courses toward both their major and the certificate. If a course in the certificate is required by a student’s major, then the student should substitute a different course in the certificate.
- S&DS Majors may not pursue the Data Science certificate.
- Non-Yale courses (for example in a Summer School) must be approved for the Certificate in advance.
Need more information?
We have a set of FAQs to help with any questions you may have about the certificate.
Get in touch
If the FAQs don’t answer your questions, you may contact the certificate coordinator.