Before joining the BSE Data Science Program, I studied graduate economics at the University of Cologne in the research track. For the Data Science program, I paused my studies for 2 semesters. I resumed my studies in Cologne after the graduation from Data Science master’s.
Interview
For me, the BSE Data Science master’s was a game-changer. The program taught me the foundations of Data Science, equipping me with the necessary tools to make a thoughtful and modern empirical analysis. Importantly, the inspiring courses and faculty raised my curiosity and ambition to identify and explore novel avenues to integrate machine learning and artificial intelligence into economic research. The program also gave me the confidence to code. Having studied economics before, I had no significant exposure to programming. Now, I look for algorithms I can implement, or for some interesting internet data, I can web scrape.
Throughout the master’s, there were episodes I wish I had chosen a less intense program. From today’s perspective, these episodes made me grow professionally and personally. They improved my ability to handle stress, manage myself more efficiently, and bound our class together. Data science is interdisciplinary, which was greatly reflected in the diversity of our class. Working together with people from other academic fields like mathematics or physics, increased my ability to communicate effectively and was great fun. I made friendships with people from around the globe and faculties. Further, studying subjects from computer science, theoretical machine learning, statistics, and econometrics, extended my academic horizon by a great deal. Now, I approach problems differently; in the field of social sciences, I ask and explore questions I have previously not thought of.