Master's in Social Data Science

University College Dublin (UCD) is a world-renowned university located in Dublin, Ireland. Founded in 1854, it is one of the oldest and largest universities in the country, with a current student population of over 34,000. UCD offers undergraduate, graduate, and postgraduate programs across a broad range of disciplines, including arts, humanities, business, law, engineering, medicine, and science. The university is particularly well-known for its programs in agriculture, veterinary science, and architecture, and is also a leader in research in areas such as nanotechnology, information technology, and food science. The campus itself is situated on 350 acres in the south suburbs of Dublin, providing a picturesque and spacious setting for students and staff. Facilities on campus include state-of-the-art lecture theaters, research labs, libraries, sports facilities, and accommodation options for students.

The MSc in Social Data Science is a one year taught programme with strong interdisciplinary features and components across social and computational sciences. It equips students with a range of social scientific, computational, informational, statistical, and visualisation skills, for curation and analysis of large or complex data that arise from human activities and interactions in the digital world. Students will receive training in sociological analysis, as well as core coding and programming skills, allowing them to avail of emergent computational methods and technologies to tackle real-world societal challenges, and inform decision making processes. Students may opt to complete an internship as part of their studies. The MSc in Social Data Science is suitable for graduates of social science or computer science programmes. Careers & Employability A wide range of different organizations including government departments, semi-state bodies, private companies in IT, finance and consultancy, as well as sectors such as education, health and social welfare are now exploring the benefits of combining large and complex data resources, including administrative data, for decision making and resource use. The MSc in Social Data Science at the UCD is ideal for graduates who want to upskill and avail of these excellent employment opportunities. It is designed to enable individuals to combine their social science and/or cognate training with strong technical and analytical skills, and to exploit the wide range of digitised and digital data now accessible by public and private sector organisations.