Course Description: 

The goal of this course is to provide Professional Masters students with industry mentorship and real-world data science training. Beyond-classroom educational opportunities are an excellent way to gain practical experience on a substantial project, to learn advanced skills, to collaborate with a professional PhD researcher, to form a connection to a data science company, and to work in a team with other graduate students. Industry partners propose semester-long data science projects. Students form two-to-three-person teams, each of which work on one project throughout the semester, under the guidance of their industry mentor, additional PhD student mentors, and the course faculty instructor. Furthermore, in weekly class meetings all students receive professional development education, data science hardware and software infrastructure training, data science research presentations, and career advice. Student teams gain valuable oral presentation experience and feedback by regularly presenting their work-in-progress, as well as a final public presentation of their project at the end of the semester. Advantages of these industry relationships often include access to rich industry-scale data, learning about real-world problems, and making industry connections useful for the future.

Prerequisites: 

Enrollment in the CICS Professional Masters program; by the end of the previous semester have completed at least two of the data science concentration core requirements; a grade point average of 3.0 or higher.