École Polytechnique HEC Data Science for Business Master of Science and Technology
The École Polytechnique and HEC Paris are offering a jointly taught MSc in Data Science for Business. This brings together two leading institutions in engineering and business and strives to equip its students with a dual profile: managers and data scientists. This is achieved by combining a scientific and business approach with the first year being spend at the École Polytechnique and the second at HEC Paris. Each year focuses on different methodologies namely the first being heavily focused on mathematics and scientific topics and the second year focuses on practical hands-on learning. This programme requires students to study at both the École Polytechnique and HEC Paris for the duration of two years. It is fully taught in English and awards 140 ECTS.
Study programme
Year 1
Students will have the opportunity to explore a variety of topics covering statistics, applied mathematics, machine learning, and programming languages amongst other courses. Students will end their first year with a 4-month internship in a company in a data-related sector. Students will also attend Data Camps once a week. These sessions aim to teach students how to perform a complete data analysis from data manipulation, exploration, and visualisation to analysis with machine learning methods.
Year 2
The second year is spent at HEC Paris with a focus on Data for Business. Students will see themselves challenged through a range of business challenges and courses on how to create business value using data. The core courses for the first semester of this year include data analytics for business strategy, regulation and compliance in data science, digital transformation and more. Business challenges will be set by companies and students will work with sophisticated and up-to-date data sets to solve complex real-life problems.
The second semester offers students the option to specialise into one of the following tracks:
- Data Manager leading to a career in the data science department of a company
- Data Entrepreneur where students join the HEC Startup Launchpad and create a startup
- Data Consultant where students join a consulting firm to help clients develop their business by leveraging data
Learning expeditions are organised to allow students to discover data and startup ecosystems in other cities such as London, New York and more.
Finally students end their second year with a research paper. They will work on this paper for four months with a tutor.
Academic requirements
Students must follow the online application process and if they are successful will be required to attend an interview. To access this programme, students must have a Bachelor's degree in Science, Engineering, Business or Economics. Additionally, a strong background in Mathematics is required as this programme deals with data pools and mathematical techniques for extraction and data visualisation will be taught. Applicants must demonstrate full English-language proficiency.
The admission committee will assess the relevance and quality of the applicant's Bachelor's degree. The Graduate Point Average (GPA), individual grades for the courses, class rank and any academic awards will also be taken into consideration.