On September 1 of this year, we were pleased to welcome the fifth cohort of the MDS Okanagan program, in person at our campus! This was our first year of having a two-day Orientation prior to the start of class on September 6. We think it went really well!

It is exciting to see the program grow year-over-year. When the program began in 2018, we started with 28 students, which then increased to 35 for year 2 and our third cohort comprised of 31 students. Covid had an impact on the numbers for the class of 2020-2021, with 30 students. This year we are at 30 students again, with the after-effects of Covid still affecting visa-processing, etc.

Here are some facts about the current cohort:

  • 30 new students
  • 9 domestic and 21 international students from countries such as Canada, China, India, Taiwan, Bangladesh and Hong Kong.
  • 17 females and 13 males
  • Academic backgrounds include civil, mechanical, electrical or computer engineering, physical, environmental, and psychological sciences, among others, international business, business administration, mathematics and statistics, air transportation, and computer science
  • Prior to joining the MDS Okanagan program, 4 of our students had completed another advanced degree (Master’s) and some had more than one degree.
  • 36.7% of the class of 2023 completed their last degree in in the past 5 years, while 46.7% just graduated in 2022. 16.7% have been in the workforce for at least 6 years. The age range of this cohort is 21-48, with an average age of 27.5 years.

We are extremely impressed with the students chosen from the pool of 530 completed applications and we look forward to an amazing year.

As you can see, the cohorts across all 5 years showcase how diverse the students coming into the program are. Since we welcome a new cohort every year, it also means our alumni network continues to grow. We now have over 125 UBC-O MDS alumni working in data science roles in a variety of industries - from government to large tech to small start-ups. Our alumni are spread across the globe with some working in BC but also in various Canadian cities, the US, China, and India. Our alumni are working for such companies as Stats Canada, Meta, Fintech Cadence, Providence Healthcare, Replicon, Hitachi, Electronic Arts, TD Bank, BC Centre for Disease control, TerraSense, Two Hat Security Research and various departments of the BC provincial government.

Should you be interested in joining the program, the application process for the 2023-2024 cohort will open early November, 2022 on the MDS UBC Okanagan website, and is open now on the the College of Graduate Studies website [https://gradstudies.ok.ubc.ca/]. Applications will close on January 31, 2023.