The deadline for the 2025 QAI Summer Program has passed.
The application for the 2025 QAI Summer Program is now open. Please read all of the information below. The application link is at the bottom of the page. Applications are due by Friday, May 9.
About the QAI Summer Program: The QAI Summer Program is a free, non-credit, second-level applied statistics and data science course intended for students who have completed introductory statistics. The program was originally designed for students participating in summer research and is now open to all Wellesley students who have taken introductory statistics. The program's goal is to introduce advanced data skills while supporting students in their current and future research projects. Topics include statistics fundamentals, such as study design, statistical inference, and tools for handling common complications like missing data; practical data handling skills, including data cleaning and the use of complex data sets; and data communication, such as best practices for visualization. All students will become proficient in the statistical software R, and training in other skills such as mapping, SQL, and GitHub will be available as well. The course is also intended to bring together students from a variety of disciplines whose work involves data. A student who successfully completes the program earns a QAI Certificate.
Why apply for the QAI Summer Program?
The program is a non-credit verison of QR/STAT 260. Students who earn QAI Certificates can move on to courses that require QR/STAT 260 as a prerequisite. Students who participate in this program have a variety of goals.
Summer research students in fields related to data can incorporate this program into their RA positions, as a way to prepare for future projects and gain a broad set of data science skills.
Data science majors and statistics minors sometimes prefer to complete this material during a summer in order to move on to other statistics courses the following year. Students juggling requirements as they aim to study abroad often fall into this category. See below for more detail on how the QAI Program fits into majors/minors.
Any student who is interested in continuing along the statistics sequence and who has less than full-time commitments during the summer may find that the QAI Program is a way to productively connect with peers, engage intellectually, and gain new skills.
Students who are waitlisted for QR/STAT 260 sometimes choose the QAI Program as an alternative.
Earning a QAI Certificate is one of the ways that a student can become eligible to apply for QAI internships.
Instructors: QAI Director Casey Pattanayak, along with a team of teaching assistants. The TAs are current Wellesley students.
Logistics:
The 2025 summer program will run for 8 weeks, from Tuesday, May 27 through Friday, July 18. The program is fully remote and largely asynchronous - there is no single time when all participants must be available.
Note that this year's QAI start date is one week after Wellesley's summer school begins and also one week before Wellesley's summer research program begins. This is the first year that the summer school and summer research programs are on separate schedules. So, the QAI is starting in between the summer school and summer research start dates. Students need to be able to commit to beginning the QAI program on time. Based on feedback from past years, we predict that starting and ending the QAI program earlier will improve the experience for summer research students, who can focus solely on their research posters at the very end of the summer.
Students completing the QAI Summer Program report that they spend an average of 10 hours/week, with a range of 8 hours to 15 hours. Lectures are delivered via asynchronous, recorded videos. Each student will be assigned to two 90-min labs at two different weekly times. There will be labs scheduled at a variety of times. We do our best to coordinate lab times to accommodate students' schedules and time zones and appreciate flexibility from students to make the scheduling succeed. Between labs, students complete online modules, work on quizzes and problem sets, and join optional office hours.
All students will need access to the internet and a computer (an iPad or Chromebook is not sufficient). Please let us know on your application if accessing this technology is an obstacle.
Balancing with other commitments: Students who are participating in the summer research program or any other internship or job, at Wellesley or beyond, should include their advisor or supervisor’s email address in the application. Please discuss the QAI program with your advisor/supervisor before applying. This person must agree that the student can dedicate an average of 10 hours each week to the QAI program. In our experience, the summer does not go well if students attempt to complete the QAI program on top of a full-time position, unless they are released from that work for 10 hours each week. Ten hours is more time than it sounds like. If you are working 35 hours/week, ten hours is 28% of your time! Students with part-time jobs may not need a supervisor’s sign-off to apply for the QAI program. Please explain your summer situation in your application.
Eligibility: The program is open to all Wellesley students, including spring graduates: the Classes of 2025, 2026, 2027 or 2028. The prerequisite is any introductory statistics course at Wellesley: STAT 160, STAT 218, ECON 103/SOC 190, PSYC 105, BISC 198, or POL 299. AP Statistics is not a sufficient prerequisite. If you have taken QR/STAT 260, you should not apply for the QAI Summer Program. However, students who have already taken other courses that rely on intro stats, such as STAT 318 or ECON 203, are encouraged to apply.
Counting a QAI Certificate toward the data science major or statistics minor: Students often have questions about how the QAI Program relates to their data science or statistics sequences. No one who earns a QAI Certificate can also take QR/STAT 260.
Statistics minors who earn QAI Certificates can replace their statistical modeling course (usually a choice between STAT 260 and STAT 318) by any STAT elective at the 200- or 300-level. They might also choose to take STAT 318.
Students who earn QAI Certificates and are pursuing a major in data science can replace the STAT 260 requirement by any STAT elective at the 200- or 300-level.
Frequently Asked Questions:
Will the QAI Summer Program appear on my transcript? No. Instead, students can list this experience on their resumes, as a way to signal statistical and data science skills.
Will I earn academic credit for participating in the QAI program? No.
How much does it cost? Nothing.
Will I earn a grade? Because the program is non-credit, you will not earn a grade that shows up on a transcript. However, we will keep track of your scores and calculate what your overall final grade would have been at the end of the summer, if the course had been for credit. Students earning the equivalent of a C or higher in the QAI Summer Program will earn a QAI Certificate. Professor Pattanayak may refer to these unofficial grades if you ask for a letter of recommendation or apply for a QAI internship in the future.
How can the QAI Summer Program help me move forward with my statistics sequence? After you have earned a QAI Certificate, you can move on to courses that require QR/STAT 260 as a prerequisite, such as STAT 309 or STAT 318. We usually do not have enough seats to accommodate everyone who wants to take QR/STAT 260 (it is offered annually in the fall), so learning this material in the summer is a way to make sure you do not have to wait to move forward with statistics.
How (else) does the QAI Summer Program differ from QR/STAT 260? The QAI Summer Program uses exactly the same lecture videos and online modules that were used in a remote, pandemic version of QR/STAT 260. The assignments are similar. However, the summer program syllabus differs from the 260 syllabus in that there are no midterm or final exams. The summer course also has no final project, as many participants are already working on summer research projects during the QAI program. QR/STAT 260 includes a project. In the summer, there are no synchronous all-class meetings, and labs are run by teaching assistants. So, students who do not take advantage of office hours will have much less live contact with Professor Pattanayak than they would if enrolled in 260. That said, all are invited and encouraged to attend Prof. P.'s office hours frequently.
I have not taken an introductory statistics course at Wellesley, but I have some other experience with data science or statistics. Am I eligible for the QAI Summer Program? No, the prerequisite is a strict one. The reason is that the QAI Summer Program is equivalent to QR/STAT 260, which is a second-level statistics course. A student who participated in the QAI Summer Program without first taking intro stats would then find themself in an awkward position in our statistics sequence: too advanced to take intro stats, but no longer eligible for QR/STAT 260, and without enough experience to take a more advanced course. In addition, the synchronous parts of the summer course rely on small group activities, and these activities are only successful if every student has met the prerequisite and can fully participate. The only exception is if a student has formally transferred credit from another college or university for a course approved by the registrar as equivalent to one of Wellesley's intro stats courses.
Additional questions? Please contact Cassandra Pattanayak at cpattanayak@wellesley.edu
List of students who earned QAI Certificates in past years. Past participants include research assistants from anthropology, biological sciences, chemistry, computer science, economics, engineering, environmental studies, Italian studies, neuroscience, physics, political science, psychology, the Botanic Gardens, and Wellesley Centers for Women.
About the QAI: The QAI was founded in 2013, designed to expand the role of statistics and data science in research, learning, and teaching at Wellesley and beyond. Since its first year, the QAI has run a summer program. The QAI also includes internships during the semester, statistical consulting for research projects, online tutorials, and other resources.
Please apply for the 2025 QAI Summer Program by submitting this application by Friday, May 9.
Students who fill out the application after May 9 will be placed on the waitlist.