Guide for Right Program
The most fitted program for students
SIAI offers a number of different masters programs with overlapping coursework that are designed to meet a variety of needs. Students are often confused and some are blindly stubborn to choose the most mathematically challenging program without considering each one’s career goal, pre-requisites, and probability to graduate. So this ‘Guide for right program’ is to help students to choose the most fitted program among SIAI’s multiple masters programs.
| Term | MSc AI/Data Science | MBA AI/Bigdata | MBA AI/Finance | Dissertation (All Programs) | ||||
| 1 Year | 2 Year | Tech / Biz | Tech / Biz | |||||
| 1st Year | 1st | [STA511] | [STA512] | [STA502] | ||||
| 2nd | [MAT521] | [STA501] | ||||||
| 3rd | [STA513] | [STA514] | [STA503] | |||||
| 4th | [STA515] | [COM501] | ||||||
| 5th | [MAT525] | [COM502] | ||||||
| 6th | [STA521] | [BUS501] | ||||||
| 2nd Year | 7th | [COM502] | [COM503] | [MAT525] | [COM503] | Dissertation MSc Dissertation MBA Dissertation | ||
| 8th | [MAT521] | [MAT523] | [BUS502] | [BUS504] | ||||
| 9th | [MAT522] | [COM504] | [MAT522] | [COM504] | ||||
| 10th | [MAT524] | [COM521] | [MAT524] | [BUS503] | [BUS505] | |||
| 11th | [MAT525] | [COM523] | [COM505] | Presentation | ||||
| 12th | [STA521] | [COM524] | [COM506] | Submission | ||||
*DBA: Minimum 6 courses from MSc AI/Data Science with 3 doctoral level dissertations(DBA Dissertation)
MSc AI/Data Science Programs
This program requires the most math and stat backgrounds to begin with, but unfortunately not many students are qualified. Initially, we accpeted all students, but almost all students switched to MBA AI tracks, or stopped pursuing the study. After years of experience, we have developed a full 2-year program and a shortened 1-year program with admission exams for both. Note that many students begin studying at MBA Program’s tech track and switch to MSc 2-year track after a year.
1. MSc AI/Data Science (2-Year)
The admission exam contains materials from STA502 and STA503, which are core requirements for MBA AI tracks. Since the first year of this program is senior year Bachelors in US top research schools, students must show 60% or above in all 12 courses to be able to be admitted to the 2nd year.
Students applying for MSc AI/Data Science (2-Year) must have at least 60% or above in an admission exam. Nearly identical courses are provided by GIAI Square (Non-degree tracks), and there will be two exams in every first weekends of January and July. The exam is a take home, like all other SIAI exams, given the nature of online school. You will have 24 hours to submit your answers. The evaluation will be given within a week.
2. MSc AI/Data Science (1-Year)
The 1-year shorten track is not for average students. We assume the students for this track have abundant math/stat background who just lacks computational (not computer) science skills, which are the core of current AI/Data Science. It skips concept of computational costs minimization by various math techniques and BUS courses shared with MBA students, but still strongly recommend to take them during your study at this 1-year track.
The admission exam for this track contains STA511, STA512, STA513, STA514, and STA515. The courses are one notch above STA502 and STA503, and mostly equivalent to senior year STEM Bachelors programs in the US top research schools. Check course intro pages for model final exam questions.
MBA AI Programs
The MBA track programs are mostly designed for students who do not pursue PhD in AI/Data Science with deep mathematical challenges. Earlier the school, before final exam questions along with coursework contents were available, many outsiders thought our MBA programs are similar to the US universities’ typical MBAs. It is NOT. The courses are at par with contents from US top research schools’ junior year STEM tracks. Note that MBA’s tech track shares 40%+ of MSc AI/Data Science.
1. Biz/tech tracks
Given years of experience, we have bifurcated the tracks into tech track that requires the same assignments/exams/term papers/dissertation with MSc AI/Data Science (2-Year), and biz track that replaces assignments/exams/term papers to less technical essays by the same course contents.
We choose to offer the same contents with different evaluation, because we understand students want to learn not just business stories with AI applications but more techical AI/Data Science materials with deeper understanding. The issue is that even with junior year easier math, not many students are qualified to translate abstract math to programming. To support these students’ dream, we have created the biz track with less burden on coursework.
2. AI/BigData vs. AI/Finance
Two tracks share most courses except two BUS courses. The BUS courses are designed to apply ML/DL/RL concepts to real world data like real projects, so each track is given specific tasks. BigData track students are given marketing, policy, IT, education cases with bigdata sets. Finance track students are given to learn basic concept of corporate finance/accounting/asset management and apply them on financial data sets with ML/DL/RL techniques.
There will be no admission exam for MBA unlike MSc tracks. Students failing in tech track exams are usually recommended to biz track alternative. If you are unsure about course difficulties, find final exams course intro pages. Some STA502, STA503 materials are available on GIAI Square for MSc admission exam.