On September 5 of this year, we were pleased to welcome the sixth cohort of the MDS Okanagan program, in person at our campus! Due to the Okanagan fires, we had to compress our two-day Orientation into one-day, prior to the start of class on September 6. We think it went 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 31 students. The 2021-2022 cohort was comprised of 30 students, with Covid still somewhat affecting visa-processing. 2022-2023 saw us again have a class of 30 students. The decision was made to increase the class size to 60 students for 2023-2024. Unfortunately, due to rigorous security checks for our international students, we were able to have just 40 students attend this year, as a number of the accepted students were unable to receive their visas in time to attend in person.

Here are some facts about the current cohort:

• 40 new students
• 14 domestic and 26 international students from countries such as Canada, China, India, Taiwan, Thailand, Indonesia and Mexico.
• 18 females and 22 males
• Academic backgrounds include various types of engineering, including financial, control systems and instruments, electronics and computer, physical, environmental, biological, pharmaceutical, actuarial, food and psychological sciences, among others, business administration, mathematics and statistics, 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.
• 75% of the class of 2023 completed their last degree in in the past 5 years, while 42.5% just graduated in 2023. 15% have been in the workforce for at least 6 years. The age range of this cohort is 22-36, with an average age of 28 years.

We are extremely impressed with the students chosen from the pool of 592 completed applications and we look forward to an amazing year.

As you can see, the cohorts across all 6 years showcase the diversity of the students coming into the program.

Since we welcome a new cohort every year, it also means our alumni network continues to grow. We now have over 150 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 organizations as the St. Louis Blues, WorkSafe BC, Stats Canada, Meta, Fintech Cadence, Lululemon, Boeing, Finning, Providence Healthcare, Rogers Communication, Replicon, Hitachi, Electronic Arts, Amazon, 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 2024-2025 cohort will open on November 4, 2023 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, 2024.