Introduction to Data Sciences

Catalog description

This course introduces students to data sciences, a discipline focused on the knowledge and skills needed to harness the power of data to advance social, physical, and life sciences, address complex national and global challenges, inform public policy, and improve human lives. It demonstrates how the discipline of data science integrates knowledge and skills from various fields such as computer sciences, statistics, and informatics through scientific methods to extract knowledge, devise predictive models, and communicate insights. Through a combination of lectures, hands-on labs, and case studies, students are introduced to the "big picture" of data sciences including elements of understanding data through exploratory data analysis, statistical inference, and building predictive models, using real-world examples from domains such as life sciences and health sciences.