Letters to Future students#

This section is a place for students enrolled in Fall 2021 to write letters to future students taking this class with Professor Brown. The websites for future sections will link back here for them to read.

Contributed Notes#

Portfolio Check Learning Curve Coming from a business background with not the best knowledge of statistics, data science came with quite a large learning curve. Just to get up to the level at which other students were performing, I had to put in extra hours week in and week out which is why it is smart to devote 6-10 hours each week as far as working through weekly assignments at the minimum. This may not include the time needed to work on portfolio checks as that is a whole separate time requirement of its own. Portfolio checks are also the reason I am writing this today for future students to read. I personally had a hard time with portfolio checks as they are vastly different from any other assignment. They are very open-ended unlike the assignments and sound much easier than they actually are. The most challenging part for me was combining the different learning achievements under one open-ended assignment. This took in-depth thought and preparation; unfortunately, there were times where I had quite a few hours of work put into a portfolio check only to have to restart because I got off track from the objective or in research. With that being said, take the time plan ahead, set goals, and give yourself time to do hours of research on your own if need be because many of the level three achievements call for material that is not learned in class (which is the whole point, to show you can devote X amount of time, research on your own, and apply it to similar methods we have worked on in class). Luckily you all have multiple attempts to obtain each achievement so there is a somewhat forgiving trial/error system, but do not let the seemingly long periods in between checks distract you because the semester moves quickly. My second recommendation is to thoroughly read the outline of what a portfolio check is and either ask questions in class or during office hours because as I stated, it is very different from the weekly assignments.

To contribute#

Via GitHub directly:

  1. Use the edit button above to add a note to this file following the example that’s commented out

  2. create a pull request