Data Science is the study of the generalizable extraction of knowledge from data. Being a data scientist requires an integrated skill set spanning mathematics, statistics, machine learning, databases and other branches of computer science along with a good understanding of the craft of problem formulation to engineer effective solutions. This course will introduce students to this rapidly growing field and equip them with some of its basic principles and tools as well as its general mindset. Students will learn concepts, techniques and tools they need to deal with various facets of data science practice, including data collection and integration, exploratory data analysis, predictive modeling, descriptive modeling, data product creation, evaluation, and effective communication. The focus in the treatment of these topics will be on breadth, rather than depth, and emphasis will be placed on integration and synthesis of concepts and their application to solving problems. To make the learning contextual, real datasets from a variety of disciplines will be used.
