Dr Arindam Banerjee
The institute’s collaboration with industry and education giants such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) and IBM among others, allows students to work, learn and demonstrate their learnings with the best in the industry
In an increasingly digital world, data plays a significant role in driving better and informed decisions, creating disruptive innovations, leading to increased productivity and culminating in overall organisational success. In today’s dynamic world, Big Data analytics has changed the way organisations identify changing trends, detect and accept challenges and explore new avenues of opportunities, thus creating enormous potential for social and economic benefits.
In late 2020, when India’s leading publication house, Analytics India Magazine ranked SP Jain’s Bachelors of Data Science (BDS) programme as the number one in India, it was truly a savoury moment. The result re-established the school’s belief in quality education and graduate outcome as its top-most priorities. The ranking parameters included programme pedagogy, faculty profile and credentials, faculty to student ratio, gender diversity, graduate outcome, external relations and placement assistance, return on investments and brand value and student review. SP Jain’s programme was the only one among its peers to score a perfect 10 in pedagogy. Needless to say, the publication surveyed top data science programmes in India, a country that leads the race in creating a league of extraordinary data scientists catering to the global need.
What makes the programme so unique
SP Jain’s three-year full-time undergraduate programme is designed to prepare students to conduct data-driven investigations aided by visual and advanced analytics. During the intensive programme, students develop an in-depth understanding of data science and the analytical techniques to analyse quantitative and qualitative data pertaining to various sectors such as manufacturing, banking and finance, retail and healthcare.
At the heart of the programme lies its pedagogy. Building on the strong foundations in data science, math and computer science in the first year. The second year explores mathematical and analytical topics in greater depth — subjects like data integration and warehousing, advanced calculus, algorithms and data structures, programming for analytics, machine learning and advanced linear algebra and applications feature. In the final year, students are exposed to simulation modelling, data mining, social web analytics, and big data processing techniques and platforms.
Find out more here.
Practical hands-on approach
The programs’ collaboration with industry and education giants such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Oracle, IBM, Here Technologies, SAS Institute, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), Tableau, American Chemical Society, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay, University of Massachusetts, Indian Statistical Institute Kolkata, Instagram and several others provides its students to work, learn and demonstrate their learnings with the best in the industry.
Students such as Sonthalia who interned at IIT Bombay (India) and Intern at Adaptive Investments, a US-based fintech company, for a period of six to eight weeks and convertible based on performance as a software engineer, it was a priceless experience. Tushar assisted the company in developing and deploying the algorithms for AWS Lambda, a revolutionary serverless computing service.
Similarly, in the words of Dhruvi Nishar and Vedant Kabra, who interned at the University of Massachusetts Boston (USA), “This internship gave me the privilege to earn insights into the financial domain and develop my interests and skills. I studied Bayesian Machine Learning, Principal Component Analysis, Markov Regression, and Efficient Frontier Analysis for optimising portfolio returns while minimising volatility using the Cboe Volatility Index (VIX) as a signal, all of which are skills that I am assuredly hoping to implement soon.”
What does this all lead to?
The first batch of students graduated in 2021 with every student securing their final placement with global companies. Students opted to take up full-time roles in Australia moved into companies such as Macquarie (Australia’s largest investment banking firm), Mindfields (Robotic Process Automation), Suncorp, Nexon Asia (Software Engineering), K4Coach Pty (Data Science Analyst) and Simplyai with an average base salary ranging between $45,000 to $65,000. Students choosing India as career options, AT Kearny, Wolters Kluwer and Brillio Inc., as a data scientist and in eClerx and Here Technologies in software engineering with an average base salary ranging between Rs9,00,000 to Rs15,00,000. Those who did not further studies moved into reputed universities such as the University of Chicago (USA), Rutgers (USA), Columbia University (USA), University of Technology (Australia) and UNSW Australia.
In summary
Data is the new oil. The strategic adaptability of Big Data will be the key to be part of the competition and paving ways future of the world. The surging demand for data scientists is only an indication towards been available at the right place and at the right time.
Dr Arindam Banerjee, Associate Professor,
Deputy Director - GMBA and MGB,
Director - Student Recruitment (UG Programmes),
S P Jain School of Global Management, Dubai.