March 27, 2024
Meghan O'Toole
Sara Jamshidi offers graduate-level data science course on Coursera
Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Mathematics Sara Jamshidi is offering a new graduate-level Statistical Learning course on Coursera.
Coursera is an online learning platform featuring courses, degrees, certificate programs, and tutorials in a wide range of subjects. The platform partners with leading universities and companies to provide instruction. Jamshidi is offering the course in conjunction with Illinois Tech, where she completed a post-doc in 2020.
“My hope is that when people go through the course, they start to think about analyzing their models in a more structured way,” Jamshidi said. “In the field of data science, there is sometimes an unfortunate emphasis on programming models without truly analyzing or understanding how they work. My hope is that the people who take this class are far more curious about the models they develop.”
Jamshidi explained that the course is a graduate-level version of two courses Lake Forest College already offers for undergraduate students in data science, CS250: Programming for Data Applications and CS450: Machine Learning and Computer Vision.
“Statistical Learning covers a lot of the same content as these two classes but from a statistical perspective. It's good for people who have taken classes like Math 450: Mathematical Statistics.”
The course is available to everyone. The free version includes access to all materials, and the paid version offers additional live sessions and graded assignments.
“I personally am very interested in ensuring that education materials are free or low cost,” Jamshidi said. “I also like when education is flexible enough to allow for different kinds of learners who might otherwise be excluded in traditional classroom models.”
The course can be taken at any time. Click here to learn more and access Statistical Learning.