Career
Data Scientist
Turn data into decisions — using statistics, ML, and storytelling to answer business questions.
Median salary
$108K
$61K$184K
2022–2032 outlook
+35%
Much faster than averageA day in the life
- 01Run exploratory analysis on a new dataset
- 02Build or tune a model and validate its accuracy
- 03Present findings to non-technical stakeholders
- 04Collaborate with engineers to deploy a model into production
What you'll actually do
- →Apply data mining, cleansing, and statistical analysis
- →Develop models to forecast or classify outcomes
- →Create visualizations and dashboards
Majors that lead here
Data Science & AI
Data Scientist, Machine Learning Engineer, Business Intelligence Analyst, AI Researcher, Data Engineer, Quantitative Analyst, Data Analyst, MLOps Engineer, Research Scientist (industry), Decision Scientist
Computer Science
Software Engineer, Data Scientist, Product Manager, Cybersecurity Analyst, AI/ML Engineer, DevOps Engineer, Systems Architect, Mobile Developer, Game Developer, Quantitative Analyst
Finance & Accounting
Financial Analyst, Investment Banker, Accountant (CPA), Financial Planner, Risk Manager
Top colleges for this path
Southern New Hampshire University
Manchester, NH
99.5% acceptance
University of Washington
Seattle, WA
48% acceptance
Purdue University
West Lafayette, IN
53% acceptance
University of Maryland Global Campus
Adelphi, MD
Georgia Institute of Technology
Atlanta, GA
16% acceptance
University of California, Berkeley
Berkeley, CA
11.6% acceptance
Purdue University-Main Campus
West Lafayette, IN
49.9% acceptance
Kennesaw State University
Kennesaw, GA
69.2% acceptance
Virginia Tech
Blacksburg, VA
57% acceptance
NC State University
Raleigh, NC
47% acceptance
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Madison, WI
45.2% acceptance
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Champaign, IL
42.4% acceptance
See how you stack up
Get your personalized match score for colleges strong in this path.