We generally only start on-campus cohorts in the Fall, but occasionally we do allow GT students to begin the program in the Spring if they have the right background in computing and statistics/operations research. If interested, please contact the Director of MSA Program Operations, Candice McLemore, to discuss the details.

Yes, MSA is an official STEM degree (CIP code 52.1399).

Academically, the two programs are the same: same requirements, same courses (with fewer elective options online), and taught by the same faculty. There's clearly a difference in the delivery style between face-to-face in a classroom and full online delivery. The other main differences are in the non-academic pieces. On-campus students pay significantly higher tuition; in return, they get a lot of perks, such as personalized assistance from MSA’s Career Services experts, a conference travel budget for networking and job search, special bootcamps in technical topics (math, statistics, programming, software, etc.) and non-technical topics (e.g., professional communication, interview skills), career panels and job fairs restricted only to MSA students, etc.

The goal of the MSA Practicum is to give students the opportunity to apply skills learned in the classroom to a real-world data science problem. The practicum is a one-semester experience that equates to 6 academic credits. Students can choose to fulfill the MSA Practicum through an internship, on-campus practicum project, or – in the case of US Citizens and Permanent Residents – a full-time job.

For the on-campus practicum project option, students have an opportunity to work in a team on a data science project of significant interest and value to a company, government agency, non-profit or other organization. Students will work to define and scope the analytics problem, apply appropriate analytics ideas, methodologies & tools, and present their findings to the sponsor. Past projects have included performing social media sentiment analysis for a tech company, predicting the likelihood of injury for professional athletes, and developing a predictive model to identify patients as high risk for hospital readmission.

For more information on the practicum click here.

Our part-time on-campus students generally have the flexibility to come to campus during the day to take their courses (usually 1-2 courses per semester). Most finish in about two years, though some have taken longer -- you are free to go at your own pace, and even take a semester off if you need it for family or work reasons. The Institute allows up to 6 years for students to complete a Master's degree.