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 | MBA AI/BigData | MBA AI/Finance | MSc AI/Data Science | Dissertation | ||
| Tech / Biz | Tech / Biz | PreMSc, 1st year | MSc, 2nd year | |||
| 1st Semester | 1st | STA502 | STA513 | |||
| 1st | STA501 | STA514 | ||||
| 2nd | STA503 | STA515 | ||||
| 2nd | COM501 | STA521 | ||||
| 3rd | COM502 | MAT521 | ||||
| 3rd | BUS501 | MAT522 | ||||
| 2nd Semster | 4th | COM503 | COM521 | Dissertation / Case study | ||
| 4th | BUS502 | BUS504 | BUS502 or BUS504 | COM522 | ||
| 5th | COM504 | COM523 | ||||
| 5th | BUS503 | BUS505 | BUS503 or BUS505 | COM524 | ||
| 6th | COM505 | STA511 | COM505 | Presentation | ||
| 6th | COM506 | STA512 | COM506 | Submission | ||
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 applicants, 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 the later. Note that many students begin studying at MBA Program’s tech track and switch to MSc track after a year.
1. Pre-MSc AI/Data Science
Pre-MSc is nearly identical to junior to senior year Bachelors in US top research schools. It is also close to MBA AI's technical track. Students are required to show 60% or above in all 12 courses to be able to be admitted to the 2nd year or MSc AI/Data Science. The school commitee cares the most in grades of final two courses, which becomes the core of MSc track.
Since first 10 out of 12 courses are identical to MBA AI's tech track, students are eligible to switch from one program to another by the 5th term of the year (Mar-Apr). Note if performance avg is below 60%, students must re-do dissatisfactory courses or have to switch to MBA to graduate.
2. MSc AI/Data Science
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 basic 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 and STA512, 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. The admission exam is usually held in the first week of July by GIAI
MBA AI Programs
The MBA track programs are mostly designed for students who do not intend to 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. Note that MBA’s tech track shares 10/12 courses with Pre-MSc.
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 Pre-MSc AI/Data Science, and Biz Track that replaces assignments/exams/term papers to less technical essays with the same course contents.
We choose to offer the same contents with different evaluation, as we understand students want to learn not just business stories with AI applications but more techical materials with deeper understanding. The issue is that even with easier math, not many students are comfortable to translate abstract math to plain English. 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.