MIT Course Heralds the Market Reality of Big Data
When you want to see where the economy is going, begin your search at its best universities. These schools became the best by trendsetting, and they remain the best by staying ahead of the curve, by preparing tomorrow’s professionals with the skills they will need now and in the future. MIT is one of the top universities in the world that made a splash when it began offering survey versions of its courses online, many free of charge. Now, what is arguably to top technology school on the planet is offering two survey courses in Big Data Science. It’s time today’s students began paying attention.
Here, from MIT’s catalog, is their course description: “This Online X Programs course will survey state-of-the-art topics in Big Data, looking at data collection (smartphones, sensors, the Web), data storage and processing (scalable relational databases, Hadoop, Spark, etc.), extracting structured data from unstructured data, systems issues (exploiting multicore, security), analytics (machine learning, data compression, efficient algorithms), visualization, and a range of applications. Each module will introduce broad concepts as well as provide the most recent developments in research.”
Just reading the description gives us a glimpse into the necessity and scope of evolving Big Data science. First, consider the phrase “state-ofthe-art.� This implies a cutting edge aspect to this subject that current and growing businesses would be foolish to ignore. Second, the description outlines various aspects of Big Data currently being implemented including data collection, data storage, processing, data extraction, systems, analytics, visualization and others. This list of specific applications allows interested students to understand both the demand for Big Data and areas of specialization that could help them increase their value to a potential employer.
The same list also telegraphs to businesses the areas of Big Data science in which they should be investing. Since market need drives the survey education marketplace, it’s clear that the market for these skills is evident to the premier tech university in the world. If they are not relevant to you, there is one question you must immediately answer: “What am I missing?�
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