Neten Dorji | Kanglung
Sherubtse College will offer two new courses, Bachelor of Science (BSc) in Statistics and Bachelor of Data Science, from July this year.
With the two new courses, the college has eight Science programmes after it started with Bachelor of Science in 1983.
The college president, Tshering Wangdi, said 30 students each for the two programmes would be taken in for this semester.
He explained that an applicant, who studied Science with Mathematics in class XII obtaining 55 percent in Mathematics and four other best subjects, would be eligible for the BSc in Data Science course.
For BSc in Statistics course, apart from science students, Arts and Commerce students, who studied business mathematics in class XII with a minimum of 60 percent, are eligible.
Dean of Academic Affairs, Tenzin Wangchuk, said the decision to start the two new programmes was based on college strategy to focus on STEM education.
He said they conducted a market survey and consulted stakeholders before submitting the proposal to start the two new courses to the Royal University. “We found there was demand for students, who study the two courses.”
College officials say the college has good infrastructure and potential to get resources for the programme. “We don’t have any problem starting the programme because we’ve required human resources. One of our faculty is undergoing a Doctor of Philosophy in Data Science,” Tenzin Wangchuk said.
He said the four-year Statistics programme would prepare students to use data to confront real world problems. “Learning how to collect and break down complex information can help statistics majors to contribute any policy decisions.”
He said that BSc in Data Science is a blend of Mathematics and Statistics with new advances in computing. “The programme is going to focus on developing skills in analysing big data using technology. It will teach students to use advanced analytics to extract accurate information from big data for decision-making.”
Tenzin Wangchuk said the programme is considered one of the trendiest and most promising courses.
Associate professor, Balamurgan, said the programme would help to analyse and make sense out of available data. “Although data is available online, there’s no one to analyse. With this programme, our students can be hired to analyse the data to make decisions.”
He said data science is a blend of Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science and the college has strong Mathematics faculties. “I think Sherubtse is the right place and faculties have enough experience to offer this programme. There’s also scope for students to absorb within the country and globally.”
He also claimed data scientists are highly demanded in the job market.
Course developers say the team was going to review the eligible criteria, if Arts and Commerce students, who studied Business Mathematics, do not perform well in the Statistics course. “From the first cohort, who’d understand their performance. We’ll change the requirement criteria for admission if the performance is poor,” a faculty member said.
College management said shifting BSc Computer courses to Gyalpoizhing provided the college space to diversify other BSc programmes.
The college also introduced new science programmes in 2019.
Meanwhile, Sherubtse College is increasing the undergraduate degree programmes to four-year to ensure greater level of maturity of graduates as they join work.