Inaugural Class of BU Computing & Data Sciences Majors Prepare to Graduate

Cohort talks about why they chose the degree, what they hope to do with it

Photo: Students stand and pose for a photo at the bottom of a set of stairs. From right to left, top to bottom: Daniel Skahill (CDS ‘23), Samantha Chen (CDS ‘23), Zining Ye (CDS ‘23), Yile Wang (CDS ‘23), and Edward Wong (CDS ‘23).

The inaugural CDS graduates pose on the main staircase at the Center for Computing & Data Sciences, April 24. From left, Daniel Skahill (CDS’23), Samantha Chen (CDS ’24), Zining Ye (CDS ’23), Yile Wang (CDS ’23), and E.J. Wong (CDS’23).

Commencement 2023

Inaugural Class of BU Computing & Data Sciences Majors Prepare to Graduate

Cohort talks about why they chose the degree, what they hope to do with it

May 16, 2023

Joel Brown

Jacob Chang-Rascle (COM’22)

A big moment is coming up at the Center for Computing and Data Sciences on Sunday morning, maybe even bigger than the opening of the building itself. The Faculty of Computing and Data Sciences will graduate its first class in a convocation ceremony.

“We can take pride, but it’s not just graduating the students. It’s all that happened to get to this point,” says Azer Bestavros, associate provost for CDS.

“The countless hours of proposing this program, sending it through University Council, hiring the faculty, doing a lot of that under the cover of COVID,” says Bestavros, who is also William Fairfield Warren Distinguished Professor of Computer Science in the College of Arts & Sciences. “COVID bought us time. We were working undercover, I like to say.”

First opened to undergraduates in 2021, the program will award BS degrees in Data Science to four students; a fifth student finishing up in December will also walk. Three students minoring in Data Science will also be acknowledged, including Bestavros’s son, John Bestavros (CAS’23), who is graduating as a computer science major.

There are 190 students enrolled in CDS’s undergrad degree program and 10 in the CDS PhD program. The new MS in Data Science program is accepting applications for the fall. Bestavros said he expects 60 to 70 students to receive their BS next year, with an average of 120 to 150 in subsequent years.

Photo: Azer Bestavros, Associate Provost for Computing and Data Sciences, speaks to the first CDS graduates on April 24th. A white man with receding silver gray hair and wearing glasses, a plaid sweater vest, navy blazer, and tan slack, laughs as he looks towards two students. — Azer Bestavros, BU’s associate provost for Computing & Data Sciences, says, “We can take pride, but it’s not just graduating the students. It’s all that happened to get to this point.”

CDS was created to offer an interdisciplinary approach to preparing students with the analytical and computational skills necessary for success in a world increasingly shaped by computation, big data, and artificial intelligence.

But it’s clear that Bestavros may be proudest of 141 words that appear on the CDS website and will also be printed in Sunday’s program: “The Pledge of the Computing and Data Science Professional” promises that students will bring technology to bear on the challenges of our time and use their skills ethically for the good of all.

“They don’t have to recite it to get the degree, but we want them to know this is the expectation,” he says.

The CDS convocation takes place Sunday at 9 am in a function space on the 17th floor of CDS.

“I’ll probably be tearful to some extent,” admits Bestavros, “It all wasn’t easy, but it will be worth it once I see these kids get their degrees. Yeah. Beautiful.”

I’ll probably be tearful to some extent. It all wasn’t easy, but it will be worth it once I see these kids get their degrees. Yeah. Beautiful.
Azer Bestavros

The convocation speaker is Fred Cibelli (CGS’97, CAS’99), principal, Financial Services Organization at Ernst & Young LLP, who works with financial firms in the New York area to modernize their technology platforms. He was previously a captain in the United States Air Force, where his responsibilities included developing global IT policies and security.

“Fred’s career actually speaks to the exact type of empowerment that data science gives you,” Bestavros says, adding with a smile, “He is already trying to recruit from our students.”

Meet the five students who’ll walk on Sunday:

Photo: Daniel Skahill, a young white man with ash brown hair and wearing a burgundy shortsleeved collared shirt, smiles and poses for the camera.

Daniel Skahill (CDS’23)

Why CDS?

I was accepted as a bio major, and then, at freshman orientation, I realized that I didn’t really want to go to medical school, so I had to think about what was interesting beyond biology. I had taken a stats class in high school, and that was really interesting to me, so I switched to stats, and as a requirement for that, I had to take a computer science class, and I really enjoyed that. So I added computer science to my stats degree, but I didn’t love the math as much as I thought I would.

When they introduced CDS, I wanted to make the transfer because I was really more interested in that intersection between math and computer science. It’s been really that happy medium of learning how to use computer science with math to achieve results.

What do you want to do with your degree? Where do you see yourself in a few years, careerwise?

I’m actually doing a one-year master’s in data science at UC Berkeley, and with that I’m hoping to break into the machine learning field. I’m really interested in artificial intelligence and machine learning and applications around that. The CDS program and BU Spark! have provided options to do a lot of that sort of stuff. This past semester, I’ve worked on a project where we’re doing some machine learning to help a nonprofit in Egypt. That’s been really cool.

I’m really interested in using machine learning to have a better impact on the world than working for a corporation that doesn’t necessarily always have the best intentions in mind. BU has really inspired me to have an ethical approach to machine learning.

What has it been like to be part of the first class to graduate from the CDS program and the first to have taken classes in the new building?

It’s pretty special. I think it’s cool being a pioneer for CDS. Graduation will be interesting because it’ll be an intimate ceremony. So I think the pros are that we get to be a part of that inaugural class that gets to walk, and I’ve also had the opportunity to be in classes where there’s probably not as many students as there will be in the next few years.

Being in that first class, data science is a pretty new field across the country, and not many schools have data science programs yet. So what I’ve experienced in the job market, and looking for internships and stuff like that, is that companies don’t really know what you’re taught when you’re receiving a data science degree. There’s not really a standardized curriculum. And so one of the downsides, I guess, is going forward, you have to prove what you know.

As for being in the building, it’s been really cool. The first few months it was really crowded, but now, finally, people are starting to let it air out, so it’s been nice.

Photo: Yile Wang, a young Asian woman wearing round wireframe glasses and light blue-gray sweatshirt, smiles and poses for the camera.

Yile Wang (CDS’23)

Why CDS?

I was a math major, and I just felt like pure math was not the thing I wanted to do. I was seeking some more practical courses, but I didn’t want to give up the credits I’d already got from math. And then they launched the CDS program, and I felt like that’s what I want to do in the future and what I want to learn.

What do you want to do with your degree? Where do you see yourself in a few years, careerwise?

I still feel like I’m needing more skills to help me to find a decent job in the industry, so I plan to do a masters program. I have two possible directions. One is data science, talking about the AI algorithm and optimization. And the other is interdisciplinary projects, looking at other subjects that may be able to cooperate with data science. One is public health or global health [after COVID]. With data science we ought to be able to see things more clearly, and with models we can probably predict and prevent bad things from happening, or at least be better prepared for them. The other field is earth and environment, which I am taking a class in this semester and inspired me a lot. I feel like data science for me is a tool.

What has it been like to be part of the first class to graduate from the CDS program and the first to have taken classes in the new building?

I feel I’m lucky. I’m a little bit jealous though about the newly incoming freshmen because they have four years to fully explore this building and explore a more complete CDS program.

Photo: Edward Wong, a young man with dark brown hair and wearing a red floral Hawaiian0themed collared shirt, smiles and poses for the camera.

EJ Wong (CDS’23)

Why CDS?

I loved the idea of having such a flexible, interdisciplinary program. CDS students can take a wide variety of classes across a lot of other domains that data science is part of these days.

What do you want to do with your degree? Where do you see yourself in a few years, careerwise?

So I originally grew up in North Tustin, California, and I’ve been a lifelong Dodgers fan and a baseball player—I’m finishing up here at BU playing club baseball—so I have a passion for data science and baseball, and it’s allowed me to do a little bit of research in baseball analytics here at BU through UROP (BU’s Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program) and my capstone here in CDS. One day I hope that I can be a data analyst or data scientist and work within the baseball analytics or sports analytics field.

What has it been like to be part of the first class to graduate from the CDS program and the first to have taken classes in the new building?

It’s been very exciting. I’m very fortunate that we have been able to get this opportunity, and I thank everyone out there who’s put this together.

Photo: Zining Ye, a young Asian woman with long, dark brown hair and wearing a white and black striped shirt and brown jacket, smiles and poses for the camera.

Zining Ye (CDS’23)

Why CDS?

I started off with computer engineering, but I figured out I didn’t really like the hardware part. So I switched my major to stats and computer science. But I never really liked the math classes, and one day I saw a BU Today article that said BU is launching a new data science major and I thought oh, this might be a better fit to my interests.

What do you want to do with your degree? Where do you see yourself in a few years, careerwise?

So that’s an interesting question. Before this year, I wanted to work in the business area. But right now, I’m applying for jobs either in sales or marketing, or others like business intelligence.

What has it been like to be part of the first class to graduate from the CDS program and the first to have taken classes in the new building?

It feels cool. I feel excited to be one of the first students to graduate with this major.

Photo: Samantha Chen, a young Asian woman with long dark brown hair with light brown highlights and wearing black glasses, a black and white striped turtleneck, and dark grey cardigan, smiles and poses for the camera.

Samantha Chen (CDS’24)

Chen will walk with the others but won’t graduate until January, as she had already switched majors a couple of times before landing at CDS, which means completing all the required courses will take a little longer. She came to BU as a math major, thinking that was the best entry point to a data science career, then switched to computer science and later statistics before the CDS major was announced.

Why CDS?

I was really interested in [data science], and I was trying to figure out what majors BU had at the time that could go into it. I came in actually as a math major. But then I took a CS class and I really enjoyed it, so I switched to computer science as a major. Then I switched to statistics until the summer before junior year when BU sent out an email about how they’re opening CDS. I was like, Oh, I think I should switch into this because this is what I wanted to begin with.

What do you want to do with your degree? Where do you see yourself in a few years, careerwise?

Honestly, that’s a kind of scary question. I’m not entirely sure. Last year, I took a UX [User Experience] class just for fun, and I really, really enjoyed it, so I am possibly looking into doing something related to UX.

What has it been like to be part of the first class to graduate from the CDS program and the first to have taken classes in the new building?

Before, when I was in CS, we were in the CAS building, and then I had all my classes online [because of the pandemic]. So coming to the CDS building is really, really nice. And yesterday, when we took the pictures—I didn’t really realize before then how small this graduating class was. Without me, it’s only four people, so it really is like history in the making.

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There are 2 comments on Inaugural Class of BU Computing & Data Sciences Majors Prepare to Graduate

Barry Levine

May 19, 2023 at 9:59 am

Congrats to my fellow BU pioneers. I too was a pioneering undergrad, starting in the newly created CS dept in 1982-1983, graduating in 1985. Before my time the Math dept offered CS. It can be both challenging and exciting to be part of something new and evolving. Best of luck post graduation. Be sure to give real world feedback to your former dept to help improve the new school for others that follow you.


1. Azer Bestavros
  
  May 19, 2023 at 12:53 pm
  
  Thank you! I will make sure to relay your note at our convocation tomorrow.

Inaugural Class of BU Computing & Data Sciences Majors Prepare to Graduate

Cohort talks about why they chose the degree, what they hope to do with it

Inaugural Class of BU Computing & Data Sciences Majors Prepare to Graduate

Cohort talks about why they chose the degree, what they hope to do with it

Explore Related Topics:

Joel Brown

Staff Writer

Jacob Chang-Rascle (COM’22)

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