Group A courses are introductory level graduate courses in the foundational areas of data science. Group B are core graduate level courses with prerequisites from Group A courses. Group C are advanced, specialized and free-standing courses, often part of the required courses in the Data Science specialization of the Graduate Program in other departments. In all three groups, required courses are indicated as such; they can not be substituted by other courses without exception approval from the graduate program committee.
The doctoral program is structured as a total of 52 units in courses from these group A, B, and C as described in detail below. Out of the 52 units, 48 units (or 12 courses) must be taken for letter grade and at least 40 units must be using graduate-level courses.
The remaining 4 (= 52 – 48) units are for professional preparation, consisting of 1 unit of faculty research seminar, 2 units of TA/tutor training and 1 unit of survival skills course taken for a passing (satisfactory) grade. Finally, as mentioned earlier, out of the 12 regular courses, at least 10 must be graduate-level courses; at most two can be upper-level undergraduate courses. 36 units or 9 courses must be completed within six quarters from the start of the degree program.