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• B.S. Information Sciences Degree

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  In today’s technology-centered job market, there is a high demand for information professionals. By earning a BS in Information Sciences (BS/IS) from the iSchool, you’ll gain a competitive edge. Our interdisciplinary, STEM-designated degree will prepare students for careers in a variety of fields.

  As a BS/IS student, you’ll learn how to manage data and other types of information to help organizations achieve their goals. You’ll become an information technology expert who understands the human perspective, social context, and policy implications.

  • Design information systems and services
  • Organize, manage, and evaluate information for diverse users
  • Interpret data for real-world application and collaboration

  Students will be able to follow a number of different "Pathways," or take courses across.

  • Information & Culture: Understand the critical, social, and cultural contexts of information science
  • Data & Society: Understand the impact of data in governance, business, culture to educate citizenry in a democracy, and inform policy
  • Data Analytics/Data Science: Understand the data life cycle and be able to analyze, interpret, explain, qualify, and contextualize data at scale
  • Human Computer Interaction (HCI)/User Experience (UX): Able to build useful and usable information systems

  Goals of the BS/IS

  • Equip students to be leaders in a knowledge society and innovators in a knowledge economy
  • Educate students for known, emerging, and currently unforeseeable careers in information sciences
  • Provide an interdisciplinary education where studies in fundamentals of information sciences and in application areas are fully integrated
  • Ensure that various upper-division elective pathways of the major share a common core of information sciences knowledge
  • Provide a program with enough flexibility to facilitate transfers into the major at the sophomore level, transfer across colleges at the sophomore and junior level, and transfers from two-year colleges
  • Since information sciences is a rapidly developing field, offer a flexible program that responds quickly to new needs and opportunities, and to new findings and approaches in the information sciences
  • Prepare interested students for graduate study in information sciences and related fields

  Objectives of the BS/IS (based on objectives of the required courses)

  • Understand relationships among people, information, and technology
  • Understand the history, theory, philosophy and methodologies of the field of information sciences
  • Apply various approaches to research in the information sciences, including social science methods, data and text mining, digital humanities, historical approaches, and others
  • Apply critical analytical skills to information issues
  • Understand fundamental mathematical and programming tools for solving problems of information modeling, expression, and transformation

  Careers

  This degree will prepare you to apply your skills in fields such as education, health care, business and finance, arts and communications, and government. Find out more about possible careers.

  • Data analyst
  • Information technology analyst
  • Data architect
  • User experience designer
  • Technology support specialist
  • Database manager
  • Market research analyst
  • Policy analyst
  • Project manager
  • Web content analyst/manager