{"id":8705,"date":"2022-11-22T09:36:48","date_gmt":"2022-11-22T15:36:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin-new\/?post_type=campus_story&p=8705"},"modified":"2022-11-22T09:36:48","modified_gmt":"2022-11-22T15:36:48","slug":"driven-by-data-uw-system-data-science-program-producing-career-ready-graduates","status":"publish","type":"campus_story","link":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/story\/driven-by-data-uw-system-data-science-program-producing-career-ready-graduates\/","title":{"rendered":"Driven by data: UW System data science program producing career-ready graduates"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Photo:<\/a>
UW Extended Campus facilitates the data science master’s program as a collaboration among UWL, UW-Eau Claire, UW-Green Bay, UW-Oshkosh, UW-Stevens Point and UW-Superior. It is entirely online, making it a good fit for both traditional students and working professionals hoping to take the next step in their career.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

UW-La Crosse graduate student Caleb Waack is ready to launch his career in data science \u2014 and he will be joining a fellow program alumnus.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Waack, who will complete\u00a0UWL\u2019s data science master\u2019s program<\/a>\u00a0in December, was recently hired by Epsilon, a media company that is part of the France-based Publicis Groupe.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In his new role, Waack will work under vice president for data science Will DeMarest, who earned his master\u2019s degree through the data science program in 2018.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThe main thing that drew me to the data science program was the courses,\u201d Waack says. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to find a program that covers all the different topics that this one does \u2014 specifically, something that works with cloud computing and has multiple machine learning courses.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

UW Extended Campus facilitates the program as a collaboration among UWL, UW-Eau Claire, UW-Green Bay, UW-Oshkosh, UW-Stevens Point and UW-Superior.<\/span>\u00a0It is entirely online, making it a good fit for both traditional students and working professionals hoping to take the next step in their career.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Waack says the program covers Amazon Web Services, Python and many other topics that help students feel ready to excel in the workforce.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The effectiveness of the program allowed Waack to hit the ground running at Epsilon, where he focuses on the ETL (extract, transform and load) process, and building and implementing models.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

DeMarest says he enjoyed the program for many of the same reasons.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

He considered several online master\u2019s programs before enrolling at UW-Green Bay \u2014 and he is glad he did.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt was very challenging and exactly what I was looking for,\u201d DeMarest says. \u201cI felt I had a better understanding of all aspects of data science after completing the (program).\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

At Epsilon, DeMarest leads a team of 10 data scientists who use machine learning algorithms to improve processes in the automotive market. The team\u2019s clients include General Motors, Ford Motor Company, Nissan, Jaguar and BMW.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

DeMarest says his UW System education has served him well, and he knew Waack would benefit from the same experiences. That, coupled with Waack\u2019s engineering background, made him the ideal candidate.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAn engineering degree combined with a master\u2019s in data science is a winning combination,\u201d DeMarest notes. \u201cCaleb is an excellent problem-solver and innovator. He has great soft skills and is excellent with data.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

UW System faculty say they are pleased by the program\u2019s success and encouraged by the reception from students and alumni.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s great to hear this feedback about the quality of the data science program grads,\u201d says\u00a0UWL Professor Jeff Baggett, academic program director<\/a>. \u201cWe built this program with career-readiness in mind, and that is paying off.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Lynn Weiland, director of Extended Learning at UW<\/a>L, says the program is an excellent example of the Wisconsin Idea, which states that education should influence people\u2019s lives beyond the classroom.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWith five other partner campuses,\u201d she says, \u201cUWL graduates become competitive members of the data science workforce, including business analysts, database administrators, software engineers, programmers and project managers.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

DeMarest says no other online course or program can match the level of expertise provided by UW System faculty.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

He has only one regret about his time in the program:<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThat I didn\u2019t start sooner,\u201d he says.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Written by UW-La Crosse<\/p>\n

Link to original story: https:\/\/www.uwlax.edu\/news\/posts\/driven-by-data\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UW-La Crosse graduate student Caleb Waack is ready to launch his career in data science \u2014 and he will be joining a fellow program alumnus.\u00a0 Waack, who will complete\u00a0UWL\u2019s data science master\u2019s program\u00a0in December, was recently hired by Epsilon, a media company that is part of the France-based Publicis Groupe.\u00a0\u00a0 In his new role, Waack […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":8707,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","institution":[96,111,104,94,95,110],"story_category":[],"class_list":["post-8705","campus_story","type-campus_story","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","institution-uw-eau-claire","institution-uw-green-bay","institution-uw-la-crosse","institution-uw-oshkosh","institution-uw-stevens-point","institution-uw-superior"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/campus_story\/8705","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/campus_story"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/campus_story"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8705"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"institution","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/institution?post=8705"},{"taxonomy":"story_category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wisconsin.edu\/all-in-wisconsin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/story_category?post=8705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}