Aims and Characteristics

This 4-year full-time scheme is designed to provide students with solid training in mathematical, statistical, and computer programming skills, with special emphasis on applications in investment and finance analytics or data science and analytics. This scheme comprises the following two undergraduate major programmes:

BSc (Hons) in Data Science and Analytics

This major focuses on training graduates with expertise that cuts across core disciplines of mathematics, statistics and computer science. It emphasises the critical arc from data to information, information to knowledge, and knowledge to decision making.

BSc (Hons) in Investment Science and Finance Analytics

This major is designed to provide students with strong mathematical and statistical skills and a thorough understanding of their applications in the world of modern investment and finance analytics.

Curriculum

All students admitted to the Scheme take a common set of subjects in their first year and select one of the majors under the Scheme in their second year.

Year One: Students study the General University Requirement (GUR) subjects and subjects common to the Scheme, such as Calculus, Multivariable Calculus, Linear Algebra, Probability & Distributions, and Programming Fundamentals.

Year Two: Students are streamed into one of the two majors under the Scheme based on their individual preferences. They continue to complete subjects common to the Scheme, such as Introduction to Statistics, Database System, Principles of Programming, Applied Linear Models, and Operations Research Methods, and start to study major discipline-specific compulsory subjects in Data Science and Analytics or Investment Science and Finance Analytics.

Year Three: Students are expected to complete most of the major discipline-specific compulsory subjects, including Statistical Machine Learning, Big Data Analytics, Decision Analysis, and Optimization Methods for the Data Science and Analytics programme and Corporate Finance, Theory of Interest and Portfolio Analysis, Investment, Derivative Pricing, and Econometrics for the Investment Science and Finance Analytics programme.

Year Four: Students have the flexibility to choose their major discipline-specific elective subjects from a large pool of elective subjects in the fields of statistics, data science, computing science, finance and investment, health and medical informatics, and urban informatics. They also complete a Capstone Project in which they tackle a problem or research topic in data science/finance analytics/statistics/applied mathematics, consolidating the discipline-specific knowledge, conceptual understanding, and generic skills they have developed through different stages of the programme.

Recognition and Prospects

Career Prospects

The Scheme is designed to develop students’ analytical, critical thinking, problem-solving and communication skills, nurturing an outlook and methodology that equip graduates to pursue a variety of careers, such as in telecoms, information technology, market research, manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, investment banking, fund management, risk management, and financial product development and pricing.

Professional Recognition

On the completion of the programme, graduates are expected to receive partial exemption from the professional assessment of:

1. The Hong Kong Securities and Investment Institute

2. The Hong Kong Statistical Society

3. The Royal Statistical Society of the UK

BSc (Hons) in Data Science and Analytics: 2 & 3

BSc (Hons) in Investment Science and Finance Analytics: 1 (2 & 3 subject to confirmation)