How to Think Like a Data Scientist
In this course, you will be introduced to the importance of gathering, cleaning, normalizing, visualizing and analyzing data to drive informed decision-making, no matter the field of study. You will learn to use a combination of tools and techniques, including spreadsheets, SQL, and Python to work on real-world datasets using a combination of procedural and basic machine learning algorithms. You will also learn to ask good, exploratory questions and develop metrics to come up with well thought-out analyses. Presenting and discussing analyses of datasets you have chosen will be an important part of the course.Our textbooks for the class are:
Our textbooks for the class are:
How to Think Like a Data Scientist (Runestone Academy Course Name: httlads-bennsp21) by Miller, Boggs, and Pearce
Python Data Science Handbook by Jake VanderPlas
We will be using the Bennington Physics Slack Workspace to communicate this term. Please make sure you join both of the Spring 2021 How to Think Like a Data Scientist channel: #spring2021-httlads.
We will meet as a class every Monday and Thursday from 10am to 11:50am.
The schedule for the course is below. Note that links to readings, data sets, assignments, and projects will become active as the term goes on.
Week of | Topic | Reading | Datasets Used |
Feb 15 | Introduction & Overview | Ch. 1 | Happiness Survey |
Feb 22 | Working in Spreadsheets | Ch 2 | |
March 1 | Spreadsheet Data Analysis | Ch. 2 | |
March 8 | Python Review + Pandas Introduction | Ch. 4 | Movie Data |
March 15 | Filtering & Indexing Data Frames | Ch. 5 | |
March 22 | Data Cleaning & Exploration Altair and Plotting | Ch. 5 | CIA World Factbook |
March 29 | Altair and Plotting | Ch. 6 | |
April 5 | Midterm Project Presentations (No Class Friday) | ||
April 12 | Text Analysis | Ch. 8 | UN Speeches |
April 19 | Text Analysis (cont.) | Ch. 8 | |
April 26 | Text Analysis (cont.) | Ch. 8 | |
May 3 | SQL Introduction (No Class Tuesday) | Ch. 9 | Bike Rentals |
May 10 | SQL (cont.) | Ch. 9 | |
May 17 | Final Projects | TBA | Your Own Data |
May 24 | Final Projects | TBA |