With Marissa Masden, assistant professor of mathematics and director, Data Analytics
COURSE DESCRIPTION
This course is about what people do with data, why they do it, and how students can do the same thing.
PRACTICAL ASPECTS
By the end of this class, students will be able to describe, select, computationally implement (using built-in tools), interpret, validate, and communicate the results of at least one example of the core data-analytical techniques; use the Python scripting language as it is commonly used in modern data analysis; participate in the cycle of (nonstatistical) data analysis; exhibit awareness of the overarching ethical issues surrounding working with data; and discuss how these ethical issues affect data careers.
FOUNDATION OF A NEW PROGRAM
DATA 160 is a foundational course in the university’s new interdisciplinary Data Analytics program, which was launched last fall. The goal of the program, which offers individual courses as well as a minor, is to equip students with the skills needed to navigate the growing world of big data, artificial intelligence, and data-driven decision-making. Courses give students experience with conventional statistics, as well as big-data competencies and programming skills, with electives providing exposure to disciplinary approaches to data and statistics.
THE PROF’S VIEWPOINT
“I made DATA 160 because I think every student deserves to know how data is used in the modern age, in terms of what people do with data, why they do it, and how they could do it themselves. I intend it to be empowering, in a handful of ways. First, that understanding what is happening with data, and how people interrogate a data analysis for accuracy and fairness, can let students begin interrogating the analyses they see in the wild. Second, building the technical skills to work with data themselves — even if that data is messy — allows them to find new information nobody has seen before, and enables them to communicate in a way that augments their words, or that can be convincing to a different audience. Finally, I think there’s a profound joy in discovering something interesting and coherent from what may initially seem like a mess of numbers and labels.”
Classes for a Changing World is a regular feature in Arches that spotlights one of the scores of inspiring, innovative, and timely courses offered each semester at Puget Sound.
