Data Science Boot Camp
Fall 2025
Sep 10, 2025
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Dec 19, 2025
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Registration Deadlines
Sep 3, 2025
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All Erdős Summer 2025 Career Launch Cohort or Alumni Club members who are not participating in another Launch bootcamp
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Category
Launch, Core Program, Boot Camp, Projects, Certificates
Overview
In this bootcamp, we will develop the skills needed to complete a data science project from start to finish. This includes defining a problem in quantitative terms, identifying key performance indicators (KPIs), acquiring and cleaning data, exploring patterns and trends, and transforming raw data into meaningful variables. We will then build models for prediction and inference, focusing primarily on supervised learning methods for regression and classification.
Click here to be invited to the slack organization: The Erdős Institute
Click here to access the slack channel: #slack-channel
Click here to download the Events & Deadlines .ics calendar file
Organizers, Instructors, and Advisors
Steven Gubkin, PhD
Lead Instructor
Office Hours:
By appt. only
Email:
Preferred Contact:
Slack
Please feel free to message me on Slack with any questions!
Alec Clott, PhD
Head of Data Science Projects
Office Hours:
By appt. only
Email:
Preferred Contact:
Slack
Participants are welcome to reach out to me via slack or email. I normally work standard EST hours (9am-5pm), but can always find time to meet folks via Zoom too after work. Let me know how I can help!
Objectives
The goal of our Data Science Boot Camp is to provide you with the skills and mentorship necessary to produce a portfolio worthy data science/machine learning project while also providing you with valuable career development support and connecting you with potential employers.
Project Examples
TEAM 33
Tuning Up Music Highway
James O'Quinn, Yang Mo, john hurtado cadavid, Ruixuan Ding, Chilambwe Natasha Wapamenshi
Known as the most dangerous highway in Tennessee, Music Highway, the stretch of Interstate 40 between Memphis and Nashville, could use a serious tuning up. This project investigates the effectiveness and cost-efficiency of potential physical safety interventions along its Madison and Henderson County segments, with the goal of reducing crash severity. We used a data-driven geospatial modeling approach to assess whether adding specific safety features to targeted segments predicts statistically significant changes in crash injury outcomes.
TEAM 29
Who Regulates the Regulators?
Jared Able, Joshua Jackson, Zachary Brennan, Alexandria Wheeler, Nicholas Geiser
With recent major cuts to governmental regulation agencies in the US, we investigate whether those cuts are justified. In particular, we analyze the efficacy of RGGI, a state-level cap-and-trade program designed to regulate CO2 emissions in power plants. By using synthetic controls, we answer the counterfactual question: "how would CO2 emissions look in a world where RGGI was never enacted?".
First Steps/Prerequisites
- Base level familiarity with Python
- Differential calculus. Ideally you also know some multivariate differential calculus and linear algebra.
- Basic statistics and probability
Program Content
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Course materials are available on github through the following link:
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Textbook/Notes
Note: our video player does not support playback speed options. You can find a third party browser extension which will allow you to modify video playback speed. For example, this one works for Chrome: video-speed-controller. If you would prefer to avoid a browser extension you can manually modify the playback speed in the javascript console as well: Speed up any HTML5 video player!
Live Lecture 00: Orientation
Live Lectures
Course orientation.
Project/Homework Instructions
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Schedule
Click on any date for more details
Phase 1 - Instruction and Project Completion: Sep 16 - Nov 5, 2025
Project Review & Judging: Nov 6 - Nov 12, 2025
Phase 2 - Intense Interview Prep & Career Connections: Nov 13 - Dec 19, 2025
Lecture 00: Orientation / Computer Setup Day
Sep 11, 2025 at 05:30 PM UTC
EVENT
Lecture 01: Supervised Learning
Sep 16, 2025 at 05:30 PM UTC
EVENT
Lecture 02: Model Evaluation
Sep 18, 2025 at 05:30 PM UTC
EVENT
Problem Session 02
Sep 22, 2025 at 05:30 PM UTC
EVENT
Problem Session 03
Sep 24, 2025 at 05:30 PM UTC
EVENT
Problem Session 04
Sep 29, 2025 at 05:30 PM UTC
EVENT
Problem Session 05
Oct 1, 2025 at 05:30 PM UTC
EVENT
Problem Session 06
Oct 6, 2025 at 05:30 PM UTC
EVENT
Problem Session 07
Oct 8, 2025 at 05:30 PM UTC
EVENT
Problem Session 08
Oct 13, 2025 at 05:30 PM UTC
EVENT
Problem Session 09
Oct 15, 2025 at 05:30 PM UTC
EVENT
Problem Session 10
Oct 20, 2025 at 05:30 PM UTC
EVENT
Problem Session 11
Oct 22, 2025 at 05:30 PM UTC
EVENT
DS Practice Interview, Option A (Link in Slack Channel)
Nov 20, 2025 at 12:00 AM UTC
EVENT
DS Practice Interview, Option A (Link in Slack Channel)
Nov 27, 2025 at 12:00 AM UTC
EVENT
DS Practice Interview, Option A (Link in Slack Channel)
Dec 4, 2025 at 12:00 AM UTC
EVENT
DS Practice Interview, Option A (Link in Slack Channel)
Dec 11, 2025 at 12:00 AM UTC
EVENT
DS Practice Interview, Option A (Link in Slack Channel)
Dec 18, 2025 at 12:00 AM UTC
EVENT
Math Hour 00
Sep 15, 2025 at 02:00 PM UTC
EVENT
Math Hour 01
Sep 17, 2025 at 02:00 PM UTC
EVENT
Project Pitch Hour
Sep 19, 2025 at 08:00 PM UTC
EVENT
Lecture 03: Complexity Control
Sep 23, 2025 at 08:00 PM UTC
EVENT
Lecture 04: Linear Regression
Sep 25, 2025 at 05:30 PM UTC
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Lecture 05: Generalized Linear Models and Generalized Additive Models
Sep 30, 2025 at 05:30 PM UTC
EVENT
Lecture 06: Inference I
Oct 2, 2025 at 05:30 PM UTC
EVENT
Lecture 07: Inference II
Oct 7, 2025 at 05:30 PM UTC
EVENT
Lecture 08: Time Series I
Oct 9, 2025 at 05:30 PM UTC
EVENT
Lecture 09: Time Series II
Oct 14, 2025 at 05:30 PM UTC
EVENT
Lecture 10: Ensemble Learning I
Oct 16, 2025 at 05:30 PM UTC
EVENT
Lecture 11: Ensemble Learning II
Oct 21, 2025 at 05:30 PM UTC
EVENT
Lecture 12: Introduction to Neural Networks
Oct 23, 2025 at 05:30 PM UTC
EVENT
DS Practice Interview, Option B (Link in Slack Channel)
Nov 20, 2025 at 04:00 PM UTC
EVENT
DS Practice Interview, Option B (Link in Slack Channel)
Nov 27, 2025 at 04:00 PM UTC
EVENT
DS Practice Interview, Option B (Link in Slack Channel)
Dec 4, 2025 at 04:00 PM UTC
EVENT
DS Practice Interview, Option B (Link in Slack Channel)
Dec 11, 2025 at 04:00 PM UTC
EVENT
DS Practice Interview, Option B (Link in Slack Channel)
Dec 18, 2025 at 04:00 PM UTC
EVENT
Problem Session 00
Sep 15, 2025 at 05:30 PM UTC
EVENT
Problem Session 01
Sep 17, 2025 at 05:30 PM UTC
EVENT
Math Hour 02
Sep 22, 2025 at 02:00 PM UTC
EVENT
Math Hour 03
Sep 24, 2025 at 02:00 PM UTC
EVENT
Math Hour 04
Sep 29, 2025 at 02:00 PM UTC
EVENT
Math Hour 05
Oct 1, 2025 at 02:00 PM UTC
EVENT
Math Hour 06
Oct 6, 2025 at 02:00 PM UTC
EVENT
Math Hour 07
Oct 8, 2025 at 02:00 PM UTC
EVENT
Math Hour 08
Oct 13, 2025 at 02:00 PM UTC
EVENT
Math Hour 09
Oct 15, 2025 at 02:00 PM UTC
EVENT
Math Hour 10
Oct 20, 2025 at 02:00 PM UTC
EVENT
Math Hour 11
Oct 22, 2025 at 02:00 PM UTC
EVENT
DS Technical Interview Prep Overview
Nov 14, 2025 at 06:30 PM UTC
EVENT
DS Practice Interview, Option C (Link in Slack Channel)
Nov 21, 2025 at 01:00 PM UTC
EVENT
DS Practice Interview, Option C (Link in Slack Channel)
Nov 28, 2025 at 01:00 PM UTC
EVENT
DS Practice Interview, Option C (Link in Slack Channel)
Dec 5, 2025 at 01:00 PM UTC
EVENT
DS Practice Interview, Option C (Link in Slack Channel)
Dec 12, 2025 at 01:00 PM UTC
EVENT
DS Practice Interview, Option C (Link in Slack Channel)
Dec 19, 2025 at 01:00 PM UTC
EVENT
Project/Homework Deadlines
Sep 11, 2025
03:59 AM UTC
Last chance to switch bootcamps
Email Amalya Lehmann at amalya@erdosinstitute.org if you would like to switch to a different bootcamp.
Sep 17, 2025
03:59 AM UTC
Watch video about Project Formation
This should help answer any Q's you may have going into project formation
Sep 17, 2025
03:59 AM UTC
Watch 3 Previous Top Projects
Consult the project database, and watch at least 3 previous top projects from Erdos Alumni.
Sep 19, 2025
08:00 PM UTC
Project Pitch Hour
Opportunity to meet with other Erdős Fellows and form teams and propose topics.
Sep 22, 2025
03:59 AM UTC
Finalized Teams with Preliminary Project Ideas
Teams need to be finalized by this point. If you proposed or created a project, you must have others in your group. If you did not propose or create a project, you must join an open group.
Sep 22, 2025
03:59 AM UTC
Last day to defer enrollment to a future cohort
Contact Amalya Lehmann (amalya@erdosinstitute.org) if you would like to unenroll from this cohort and defer to a future cohort.
Sep 26, 2025
03:59 AM UTC
Data gathering and defining stakeholders + KPIs
Find the dataset you will be working with. Describe the dataset and the problem you are looking to solve (1 page max). List the stakeholders of the project and company key performance indicators (KPIs) (bullet points).
Oct 3, 2025
03:59 AM UTC
Data cleaning + preprocessing + EDA
Look for missing values and duplicates. Basic data manipulation & preliminary feature engineering. Exploratory data analysis.
Oct 10, 2025
03:59 AM UTC
Written proposal of modeling approach [Checkpoint]
Describe your planned modeling approach, based on the exploratory data analysis from the last two weeks (< 1 page, bullet points).
Oct 17, 2025
03:59 AM UTC
Modeling and Preliminary Results
Results with visualizations and/or metrics. List of successes and pitfalls.
Oct 24, 2025
03:59 AM UTC
Clean your repository and start working on final presentation
Clean up your repository so that an outsider can easily follow your work. Convert notebooks into scripts where possible. Confirm that the whole pipeline from data ingestion all the way to prediction or inference works without fuss.
Nov 5, 2025
03:59 AM UTC
Final Projects Due
Final Projects must be submitted by this deadline in order to receive a certificate of completion.