4.00 Credits
This course will teach the foundations of data science and data-driven research. It is designed to serve as an optional elective course for mathematics majors, minors, and other STEM, business, and social science majors who are interested in pursuing data-driven careers or graduate study programs. Students will acquire basic computational skills, basic knowledge of statistical analysis, error analysis, and the basics of machine learning. Students will also be familiarized with good practices for handling small and big data. After this class, students should be able to formulate a question, identify appropriate data to answer the question, prepare and analyze the data, extract knowledge and insights, make decisions and identify the confidence level of decisions. This course will be organized in a modular fashion, with labs and projects assigned to students for group work.