Introduction to Data Science 📊 | Winter 2026
Understanding data and how it shapes the world around us
Winter 2026
PETER 110
Tues & Thurs 9:30-10:50AM
If you are joining the course late and would still like to earn full credit for assignments, please read this!
Office Hours
- Prof. Lai:
- Tues, 2-3pm (book ↗ only) @ CSB 244/Zoom
- Wed, 4:30-5:30pm (walk-in!) @ CSB 244
- Thurs, 2-3pm (walk-in!) @ CSB 244
- TAs: During discussion section
- PLAs:
- Fri, 12-2p @ Zoom ↗ (Brandon, Jayminn, Yash)
- Fri, 12-1p @ CSB 150 (Alex)
- Fri, 1-2p @ HDSI 155 (Adrian, TQ)
Week 1 - Intro to Data Science
📘 Read Syllabus & Course Policies
📘 Read R1: 50 Years of Data Science
- 🧑🏫 Mon Jan 5
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DISC NO Discussion Section
- 🧑🏫 Tue Jan 6
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LEC 1 Course overview & what is data science?
slides -
MISC 💡 Webclicker 101
- 🧑🏫 Thu Jan 8
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LEC 2 Data science questions
slides - 🧑🏫 Fri Jan 9
-
OH PLA office hours
Week 2 - Ethics & Data
📘 Read R2: Ethics Readings
- 🧑🏫 Mon Jan 12
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DISC Intro, discuss R1
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QUIZ R1 quiz DUE @ 11:59pm submit here
-
MISC Syllabus quiz DUE @ 11:59pm submit here
-
MISC Pre-course survey DUE @ 11:59pm submit here
- 🧑🏫 Tue Jan 13
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LEC 3 Ethics and privacy
- 🧑🏫 Thu Jan 15
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LEC 4 Data & data types
- 🧑🏫 Fri Jan 16
-
OH PLA office hours
Week 3 - Data Collection and Wrangling
📘 Read R3: Data Organization Readings
- 🧑🏫 Mon Jan 19
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DISC Discuss R2 Ethics
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QUIZ Due R2 quiz
- 🧑🏫 Tue Jan 20
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LEC 5 Obtaining data
- 🧑🏫 Thu Jan 22
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LEC 6 Data wrangling
- 🧑🏫 Fri Jan 23
-
OH PLA office hours
Week 4
- 🧑🏫 Mon Jan 26
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DISC Discuss R3 + exam review
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QUIZ R3 quiz DUE @ 11:59pm
- 🧑🏫 Tue Jan 27
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EXAM 1 EXAM 1
- 🧑🏫 Thu Jan 29
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GUEST Guest lecture: Eddie Reyes — Co-Founder, Buoy Health & Forbes 30u30
- 🧑🏫 Fri Jan 30
-
OH PLA office hours
Week 5 - Data visualization & EDA
📘 Read R4: Data Visualization Readings
- 🧑🏫 Mon Feb 2
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DISC Group work
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PROJ DUE P1 group project proposal
- 🧑🏫 Tue Feb 3
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LEC 7 Data visualization
- 🧑🏫 Thu Feb 5
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LEC 8 Hypothesis testing and exploratory data analysis
- 🧑🏫 Fri Feb 6
-
OH PLA office hours
Week 6 - Communication & Reproducibility
- 🧑🏫 Mon Feb 9
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DISC Discuss R4 Data Visualization
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QUIZ DUE R4 quiz
- 🧑🏫 Tue Feb 10
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LEC 9 Communicating data insights
- 🧑🏫 Thu Feb 12
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LEC 10 Reproducibility & computational workflows
- 🧑🏫 Fri Feb 13
-
OH PLA office hours
Week 7 - Algorithms
- 🏠 Mon Feb 16
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HW Due A1 data visualization
- 🧑🏫 Tue Feb 17
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LEC 11 Algorithms and computability
- 🧑🏫 Thu Feb 19
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GUEST Guest lecture: Sundas Khalid — Principal Analytics Lead, Google Search; YouTuber & Educator
- 🧑🏫 Fri Feb 20
-
OH PLA office hours
Week 8 - Inference and Machine Learning
📘 Read R5: Machine Learning Readings
- 🏠 Mon Feb 23
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HW Due A2 p-values
- 🧑🏫 Tue Feb 24
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LEC 12 Statistical inference
- 🧑🏫 Thu Feb 26
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LEC 13 Machine learning
- 🧑🏫 Fri Feb 27
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OH PLA office hours
Week 9
- 🧑🏫 Mon Mar 2
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DISC Discuss R5 + Exam review
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QUIZ Due R5 quiz
- 🧑🏫 Tue Mar 3
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EXAM 2 EXAM 2
- 🧑🏫 Thu Mar 5
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GUEST Guest lecture: Emma Krause — Staff Machine Learning Engineer, PathAI
- 🧑🏫 Fri Mar 6
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OH PLA office hours