The Right Skill Set Is the One That Allows You to Pursue Your Interests

Well, every year, for the first week of this module, we engage in what I like to call our Data Science Bootcamp. This is an intensive preparatory week in which I present the students with a sample data science project, from start to finish, to give them a sense of what is expected from their group efforts. Every year I try to create a new project on a contemporary topic. In the past, I have covered topics such as marathon running (linked to Elide Kipchoge's efforts to break the 2-hour barrier), Hollywood movies (is it true that movies are rarely as good as the books on which they are based?), and the COVID pandemic, among others. During the bootcamp week, I describe how to take a topic from a vague project idea to a concrete set of suitable research questions, how to assemble an appropriate dataset, how to clean and analyze the data, and how to use the results of the analysis to carefully answer the research questions in a clear and compelling way.