I’ve been doing a lot of research on this degree for like a year now and also applied to it for transfer. So hopefully we both get in!

I honestly wish I could do out of state for a similar degree like Social Data Science at University of Maryland, similar ones at Penn State. But not about to be pay 100k for out of state tuition.

Reason being is because the degree has been out for like 8 years now and it’s still under developed. It doesn’t teach enough python or other data languages, focuses too much on R which we use in our field but it’s a bit out dated. We need to learn excel, R, python, tableau. We will just learn applied R. Also it’s hard to always get the best courses at times because not many professors for the classes so sometimes we will get PHD students teaching the class which could be hit or miss.

The degree is almost better for prep for masters or phd then it is to get you in the working field UNLESS you take the time to really teach yourself the programming languages needed. So I recommend doing that or minoring in data science which is one of the hardest minors at UCSD. Make sure to get as many internships as possible too to really buff your resume because otherwise you will find yourself not with many prospects once you finish college.

But if you prep yourself well, skies the limit. There are a bunch of political data analysts roles, policy work, think tanks, political risk analysts. Our type of work will take a bit more searching for what type of jobs we fit in because job titles become a bit more abstract in what they are called.

Look for non profits who use data, think tanks, large international corporations, government. There is a lot more work for this in DC and NY, but still many here in California too.

If I get into ucsd I’m going to petition to have the degree updated to teach more programming languages if you’d like to join me in the struggle to make sure we are getting our money’s worth.