Read the full article below (in Italian):
Data is the digital powerhouse, and data science is the driving force behind it. It’s a tool for uncovering stories hidden in data, predicting the future, and making smart decisions that shape industries. So, what can you do with a data science degree? A whole lot, it turns out. Let’s find out more.
Exploring Career Paths with a Data Science Degree:
The demand for data-savvy professionals is skyrocketing across various sectors. Let’s break down the “who’s who” in data science and see where you could fit in.
- As a data scientist, you’re at the forefront of unearthing insights from a mass of data. Day to day, you will build predictive models and algorithms and drive strategic decisions.
- The machine learning engineer role means you develop systems that learn from data and improve themselves without human intervention: smart algorithms that predict user behavior, automate tasks, and even drive cars.
- Data analysts turn data into easily understandable insights. Their toolkit includes statistical analysis, data visualization, and a knack for spotting trends for informed decision-making.
- As a business intelligence analyst, you bridge data and strategy to help organizations make smarter decisions through data. This involves analyzing market trends, monitoring competition, and creating dashboards of the company’s performance.
All this is just scratching the surface. When pondering “what jobs can you get with a data science degree,” there’s nearly limitless potential. With a data science degree, you could work anywhere from tech giants and finance firms to healthcare organizations and government agencies. For just a few examples, you could predict the financial trends and outcomes of a healthcare initiative or follow student progress in an educational institution.
Is a Data Science Degree Worth It?
A data science degree opens pathways to various industries, like online marketing, finances, environment, or entertainment. Clearly, data is everywhere, and so is the demand for those who can understand and manipulate it.
With how widely applicable data science is, salary potential is unsurprisingly vast. It’s a field where six-figure salaries are the norm, not the exception. The median annual wage for data scientist is £59,582 per year in London, and around €78,646 in Berlin. And that’s just the median—many data scientists earn significantly more, especially as they gain experience in high-demand areas.
The demand for data professionals is through the roof. Every company tries to become more data-driven and needs people who can analyze, interpret, and leverage data. This demand translates to job security and plenty of opportunities to advance your career.
Personal growth is another massive perk. Data science is in a permanent flux, which means you’re always learning. New programming languages, machine learning algorithms, or ways to visualize data are being introduced to put you on the cutting edge of tech.
Employment for data scientists might soar by 35% from 2022 to 2032, with an average of 17,700 job openings each year, a much faster growth than the average. Salaries range impressively from $95,000 to $250,000 when expressed in USD.
What to Do With a Data Science Degree Beyond Traditional Paths:
Here are some thought-provoking directions for what to do with a data science degree.
Entrepreneurship
Data science acumen can see you launching startups that use big data. Perhaps you could build apps that predict consumer behavior or platforms that personalize education. Your ability to extract insights from data can identify untapped markets or create entirely new service categories.
Consultancy
As a consultant, you can be the beacon of wisdom for businesses across the spectrum. Your know-how could create a more optimal retail supply chain, mitigate financial risks for a bank, or measure the impact of a nonprofit’s programs.
Positions in Non-Tech Industries
Data science is infiltrating every corner of the economy. You can use data to improve manufacturing, make hospital conditions better for patients, optimize crop yields in agriculture, or contribute to saving the environment by following emission trends. Your skills could lead to breakthroughs in sustainability, quality of life, and more.
Cross-Disciplinary
The intersection of data science with other fields opens up exciting new roles. Consider a career as a digital humanities researcher, where you apply data analysis to uncover trends in literature, art, or history. Or perhaps you could become a legal tech consultant who predicts trial outcomes or analyzes legal documents. Data science collaborating with other disciplines can lead to entirely new fields of study.
Navigating the Intersection: Data Science and Cybersecurity
Data science’s knack for sifting through mountains of data to uncover hidden patterns or predict future threats complements cybersecurity’s focus on protecting these insights and the systems that house them. Therefore, you might have a dual focus: using analytical techniques for data security and applying security principles to protect data integrity. The synergy bolsters defense mechanisms and makes data analysis more sophisticated and broader.
OPIT’s Distinctive Educational Offerings
Studying online makes sense – it’s flexible so you can learn at your own pace, and lets you connect with peers and experts from all over the world. It’s also much more accessible and affordable than traditional education. Starting with the Bachelor’s Degree (BSc) in Modern Computer Science, OPIT gives you a solid foundation to make a mark in data science. This program covers the essentials—programming, software development, databases, and cybersecurity. It’s equally valuable to professionals to boost their skills as well as fresh high school graduates who want a future in computer science.
Furthermore, OPIT’s Master’s Degrees (MSc) in Applied Digital Business and Applied Data Science and AI bring together the business and technology of the future now. These programs reveal the symbiosis between tech and business. Students spearhead digital strategies, manage digital products, and navigate digital finance. In an economy increasingly defined by digital interactions, these degrees prepare you to be at the forefront.
OPIT, as your educational partner, combines career-aligned curricula, flexible studying, creative testing, and the chance to connect to top-dog industry experts.
Data Science Is a Door Opener
Let’s recap the question: “Is a data science degree worth it?” With a data science degree from OPIT, the career paths you take are promising, no matter where you go. If your passion lies in crunching numbers to reveal hidden patterns or using insights to drive business strategies, the qualifications can lead you to numerous possibilities.
Think long and hard about your aspirations and interests, and consider how they align with the power of data science. There will never be a dull moment in your data science career, and OPIT’s program is a surefire way to get you there.
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From the same author
Read the articleSource:
- Agenda Digitale, published on June 16th, 2025
By Lokesh Vij, Professor of Cloud Computing Infrastructure, Cloud Development, Cloud Computing Automation and Ops and Cloud Data Stacks at OPIT – Open Institute of Technology
NIST identifies five key characteristics of cloud computing: on-demand self-service, network access, resource pooling, elasticity, and metered service. These pillars explain the success of the global cloud market of 912 billion in 2025
Read the articleYou’ve probably seen two of the most recent popular social media trends. The first is creating and posting your personalized action figure version of yourself, complete with personalized accessories, from a yoga mat to your favorite musical instrument. There is also the Studio Ghibli trend, which creates an image of you in the style of a character from one of the animation studio’s popular films.
Both of these are possible thanks to OpenAI’s GPT-4o-powered image generator. But what are you risking when you upload a picture to generate this kind of content? More than you might imagine, according to Tom Vazdar, chair of cybersecurity at the Open Institute of Technology (OPIT), in a recent interview with Wired. Let’s take a closer look at the risks and how this issue ties into the issue of responsible artificial intelligence.
Uploading Your Image
To get a personalized image of yourself back from ChatGPT, you need to upload an actual photo, or potentially multiple images, and tell ChatGPT what you want. But in addition to using your image to generate content for you, OpenAI could also be using your willingly submitted image to help train its AI model. Vazdar, who is also CEO and AI & Cybersecurity Strategist at Riskoria and a board member for the Croatian AI Association, says that this kind of content is “a gold mine for training generative models,” but you have limited power over how that image is integrated into their training strategy.
Plus, you are uploading much more than just an image of yourself. Vazdar reminds us that we are handing over “an entire bundle of metadata.” This includes the EXIF data attached to the image, such as exactly when and where the photo was taken. And your photo may have more content in it than you imagine, with the background – including people, landmarks, and objects – also able to be tied to that time and place.
In addition to this, OpenAI also collects data about the device that you are using to engage with the platform, and, according to Vazdar, “There’s also behavioral data, such as what you typed, what kind of image you asked for, how you interacted with the interface and the frequency of those actions.”
After all that, OpenAI knows a lot about you, and soon, so could their AI model, because it is studying you.
How OpenAI Uses Your Data
OpenAI claims that they did not orchestrate these social media trends simply to get training data for their AI, and that’s almost certainly true. But they also aren’t denying that access to that freely uploaded data is a bonus. As Vazdar points out, “This trend, whether by design or a convenient opportunity, is providing the company with massive volumes of fresh, high-quality facial data from diverse age groups, ethnicities, and geographies.”
OpenAI isn’t the only company using your data to train its AI. Meta recently updated its privacy policy to allow the company to use your personal information on Meta-related services, such as Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, to train its AI. While it is possible to opt-out, Meta isn’t advertising that fact or making it easy, which means that most users are sharing their data by default.
You can also control what happens with your data when using ChatGPT. Again, while not well publicized, you can use ChatGPT’s self-service tools to access, export, and delete your personal information, and opt out of having your content used to improve OpenAI’s model. Nevertheless, even if you choose these options, it is still worth it to strip data like location and time from images before uploading them and to consider the privacy of any images, including people and objects in the background, before sharing.
Are Data Protection Laws Keeping Up?
OpenAI and Meta need to provide these kinds of opt-outs due to data protection laws, such as GDPR in the EU and the UK. GDPR gives you the right to access or delete your data, and the use of biometric data requires your explicit consent. However, your photo only becomes biometric data when it is processed using a specific technical measure that allows for the unique identification of an individual.
But just because ChatGPT is not using this technology, doesn’t mean that ChatGPT can’t learn a lot about you from your images.
AI and Ethics Concerns
But you might wonder, “Isn’t it a good thing that AI is being trained using a diverse range of photos?” After all, there have been widespread reports in the past of AI struggling to recognize black faces because they have been trained mostly on white faces. Similarly, there have been reports of bias within AI due to the information it receives. Doesn’t sharing from a wide range of users help combat that? Yes, but there is so much more that could be done with that data without your knowledge or consent.
One of the biggest risks is that the data can be manipulated for marketing purposes, not just to get you to buy products, but also potentially to manipulate behavior. Take, for instance, the Cambridge Analytica scandal, which saw AI used to manipulate voters and the proliferation of deepfakes sharing false news.
Vazdar believes that AI should be used to promote human freedom and autonomy, not threaten it. It should be something that benefits humanity in the broadest possible sense, and not just those with the power to develop and profit from AI.
Responsible Artificial Intelligence
OPIT’s Master’s in Responsible AI combines technical expertise with a focus on the ethical implications of AI, diving into questions such as this one. Focusing on real-world applications, the course considers sustainable AI, environmental impact, ethical considerations, and social responsibility.
Completed over three or four 13-week terms, it starts with a foundation in technical artificial intelligence and then moves on to advanced AI applications. Students finish with a Capstone project, which sees them apply what they have learned to real-world problems.
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Related posts
Source:
- Agenda Digitale, published on June 16th, 2025
By Lokesh Vij, Professor of Cloud Computing Infrastructure, Cloud Development, Cloud Computing Automation and Ops and Cloud Data Stacks at OPIT – Open Institute of Technology
NIST identifies five key characteristics of cloud computing: on-demand self-service, network access, resource pooling, elasticity, and metered service. These pillars explain the success of the global cloud market of 912 billion in 2025
Read the full article below (in Italian):
You’ve probably seen two of the most recent popular social media trends. The first is creating and posting your personalized action figure version of yourself, complete with personalized accessories, from a yoga mat to your favorite musical instrument. There is also the Studio Ghibli trend, which creates an image of you in the style of a character from one of the animation studio’s popular films.
Both of these are possible thanks to OpenAI’s GPT-4o-powered image generator. But what are you risking when you upload a picture to generate this kind of content? More than you might imagine, according to Tom Vazdar, chair of cybersecurity at the Open Institute of Technology (OPIT), in a recent interview with Wired. Let’s take a closer look at the risks and how this issue ties into the issue of responsible artificial intelligence.
Uploading Your Image
To get a personalized image of yourself back from ChatGPT, you need to upload an actual photo, or potentially multiple images, and tell ChatGPT what you want. But in addition to using your image to generate content for you, OpenAI could also be using your willingly submitted image to help train its AI model. Vazdar, who is also CEO and AI & Cybersecurity Strategist at Riskoria and a board member for the Croatian AI Association, says that this kind of content is “a gold mine for training generative models,” but you have limited power over how that image is integrated into their training strategy.
Plus, you are uploading much more than just an image of yourself. Vazdar reminds us that we are handing over “an entire bundle of metadata.” This includes the EXIF data attached to the image, such as exactly when and where the photo was taken. And your photo may have more content in it than you imagine, with the background – including people, landmarks, and objects – also able to be tied to that time and place.
In addition to this, OpenAI also collects data about the device that you are using to engage with the platform, and, according to Vazdar, “There’s also behavioral data, such as what you typed, what kind of image you asked for, how you interacted with the interface and the frequency of those actions.”
After all that, OpenAI knows a lot about you, and soon, so could their AI model, because it is studying you.
How OpenAI Uses Your Data
OpenAI claims that they did not orchestrate these social media trends simply to get training data for their AI, and that’s almost certainly true. But they also aren’t denying that access to that freely uploaded data is a bonus. As Vazdar points out, “This trend, whether by design or a convenient opportunity, is providing the company with massive volumes of fresh, high-quality facial data from diverse age groups, ethnicities, and geographies.”
OpenAI isn’t the only company using your data to train its AI. Meta recently updated its privacy policy to allow the company to use your personal information on Meta-related services, such as Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp, to train its AI. While it is possible to opt-out, Meta isn’t advertising that fact or making it easy, which means that most users are sharing their data by default.
You can also control what happens with your data when using ChatGPT. Again, while not well publicized, you can use ChatGPT’s self-service tools to access, export, and delete your personal information, and opt out of having your content used to improve OpenAI’s model. Nevertheless, even if you choose these options, it is still worth it to strip data like location and time from images before uploading them and to consider the privacy of any images, including people and objects in the background, before sharing.
Are Data Protection Laws Keeping Up?
OpenAI and Meta need to provide these kinds of opt-outs due to data protection laws, such as GDPR in the EU and the UK. GDPR gives you the right to access or delete your data, and the use of biometric data requires your explicit consent. However, your photo only becomes biometric data when it is processed using a specific technical measure that allows for the unique identification of an individual.
But just because ChatGPT is not using this technology, doesn’t mean that ChatGPT can’t learn a lot about you from your images.
AI and Ethics Concerns
But you might wonder, “Isn’t it a good thing that AI is being trained using a diverse range of photos?” After all, there have been widespread reports in the past of AI struggling to recognize black faces because they have been trained mostly on white faces. Similarly, there have been reports of bias within AI due to the information it receives. Doesn’t sharing from a wide range of users help combat that? Yes, but there is so much more that could be done with that data without your knowledge or consent.
One of the biggest risks is that the data can be manipulated for marketing purposes, not just to get you to buy products, but also potentially to manipulate behavior. Take, for instance, the Cambridge Analytica scandal, which saw AI used to manipulate voters and the proliferation of deepfakes sharing false news.
Vazdar believes that AI should be used to promote human freedom and autonomy, not threaten it. It should be something that benefits humanity in the broadest possible sense, and not just those with the power to develop and profit from AI.
Responsible Artificial Intelligence
OPIT’s Master’s in Responsible AI combines technical expertise with a focus on the ethical implications of AI, diving into questions such as this one. Focusing on real-world applications, the course considers sustainable AI, environmental impact, ethical considerations, and social responsibility.
Completed over three or four 13-week terms, it starts with a foundation in technical artificial intelligence and then moves on to advanced AI applications. Students finish with a Capstone project, which sees them apply what they have learned to real-world problems.
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