Contents

Your course dashboard

Tip

I recommend bookmarking this page as your go-to when you visit the site!

Key links:

  1. Class announcements, assignment links, and discussion board

  2. Easy access to slides

  3. My “Class-Notes” repo

  4. How to add the schedule to your Google Calendar (high ROI on 2 minutes of work)

Links 2 and 3 won’t be available until after the first class.

Warning

To get class announcements, you must get on the Github org’s “classmates” team! Follow the set up steps here.

(Announcements will NOT be made on Coursesite.)

Upcoming Task Deadlines

Tasks in black should be completed BEFORE the 10:45am class starts.

Due By Task
Jan 21Create GitHub account
Jan 21Fill out this survey
Jan 21Click on the link in coursesite to join the class's GitHub organization
Jan 22Once I accept you into the organization, go to the GitHub discussion board,find the link to start the first assignment and click it!
Jan 23Finish all the set up tasks (1.2)
Jan 23Read the syllabus section on the site
Jan 23Complete the GitHub Exercises
Jan 23Invite Keisha (@keishamodi) and me (@donbowen) to your Class Notes repo
Jan 28Read "How to do assignments"
Jan 28Reading: 1.1-1.8
Jan 28Finish the Jupyterlab exercises
Jan 30(Optional) Do Chapter 2 (basic syntax) to 14 (modules) of Whirlwind of Python. Read and run code on your computer too.
Jan 30Reading: 2.1-2.8
Feb 02ASGN 1 due at 8pm EST
Feb 04Code Practice: 3.1.3
Feb 04Reading: Start 3.1 and 3.2
Feb 06Please complete check-in survey :)
Feb 06Exercises: 3.2.8
Feb 06Reading: Finish all within 3.1 and 3.2
Feb 05ASGN 1 Peer review due at 8pm EST
Feb 09ASGN 2 due at 8pm EST

Upcoming Classes

Date Class
Jan 21Motivation and startup, GitHub basics
Jan 23Using JupyterLab
Jan 28Python Basics
Jan 30More Python and best practices
Feb 04Numpy and Pandas; Peer Eval Guidance
Feb 06Pandas EDA (exploratory data analysis)

Schedule Overview (Big picture)

MODULE 1: MOTIVATION AND GETTING STARTED
install all programs
basics of Python (Jupyter Lab) and GitHub
debugging (YUCK) and the process of coding
project management and programming golden rules
-1 Assignment
MODULE 2: DATA EXPLORATION, CLEANING, AND ORGANIZATION
learn packages: numpy, pandas, seaborn, matplotlib
wrangling data with pandas
visualization (intro and best practices/tips)
playing with our first serious finance datasets
merging data
-3 Assignments
MODULE 3: DATA ON THE WEB
learn packages: requests_html, requests, bs4, urllib, re
click and download, API plug ins, custom API, and scraping
parsing and searching text
- 1 Project
MODULE 4: PREDICTION MODELS AND DATA ANALYSIS
learn packages: scikit-learn
keeping analysis methodology in analysis context
not just "do this", but "why are we doing this"
regressions - how to do > interpret > design > do
(un)supervised ML - how to do > interpret > design > do
-4 Assignments (last one is the contest)
-1 Group Project

Full semester schedule

Date Task
Jan 21Motivation and startup, GitHub basics
Jan 23Using JupyterLab
Jan 28Python Basics
Jan 30More Python and best practices
Feb 02ASGN 1 due at 8pm EST
Feb 04Numpy and Pandas; Peer Eval Guidance
Feb 06Pandas EDA (exploratory data analysis)
Feb 05ASGN 1 Peer review due at 8pm EST
Feb 11Visual EDA
Feb 09ASGN 2 due at 8pm EST
Feb 13Visual EDA
Feb 12ASGN 2 Peer review due at 8pm EST
Feb 16ASGN 3 due at 8pm EST
Feb 18Merging and wrangling
Feb 20Data wrangling outro
Feb 19ASGN 3 Peer review due at 8pm EST
Feb 25Planning a large project, getting started
Feb 27Building a spider
Feb 23ASGN 4 due at 8pm EST
Feb 26ASGN 4 Peer review due at 8pm EST
Mar 04Introductory NLP
Mar 06Introductory NLP
Mar 11Spring Break
Mar 13Spring Break
Mar 18Intro to Modeling, Year of Learning theme
Mar 20Regression: Mechanics
Mar 21Midterm/ASGN5 due at 4pm EST
Mar 25Regression: Interpretation
Mar 23Midterm/ASGN5 Peer review due at 8pm EST
Mar 27Regression: Conclusions
Mar 30ASGN 6 due at 8pm EST
Apr 01Setting up a website to show off your work
Apr 03Intro to prediction modeling
Apr 02ASGN 6 Peer review due at 8pm EST
Apr 08Pipelines: Prediction modeling done right
Apr 10Pipelines continued
Apr 11Initial Project Proposals due at 4pm EST
Apr 15Optimizing pipelines
Apr 17Better predictions: Preprocessing
Apr 18Project Proposal Revisions due at 8pm EST
Apr 20ASGN 7 due at 8pm EST
Apr 22Discussion: recap, A7, A8, projects
Apr 23ASGN 7 Peer review due at 8pm EST
Apr 24A quick journey into The Future
Apr 29Project working groups
Apr 27ASGN 8 (Prediction contest) due at 5pm!!!
May 01Presentations, contest results, outro
May 01Project presentations
May 01Project websites due
May 02Project peer evals due at 11pm EST
May 02Personal website graded

Completed Tasks

Due By Task

Add the schedule to your Google Calendar

This is a good idea!

Step 1: Add Assignment Due Dates

  1. Visit Google Calendar’s Add Calendar from URL page

    • Mac Calendar users: Open Calendar app → Go to File → New Calendar Subscription → Paste URL below → Adjust refresh frequency

    • Outlook users: Settings → Import calendar → From web → Paste URL below → Name and click import

  2. Copy and paste this URL:
    raw.githubusercontent.com/LeDataSciFi/ledatascifi-2025/refs/heads/main/content/about/fin377_due_dates.ics

  3. Click “Add calendar”

  4. Set up notifications for assignment due dates:

    • Find “FIN377 due dates” in your calendar list (left sidebar)

    • Click the three dots next to it and select “Settings”

    • Scroll to “Event notifications”

    • Recommended: Add notifications for “1 day before” and “1 hour before”

    • Optional: Under “Other notifications”, select “Email” for “New events” and “Changed events” to be notified when assignments are added or modified

Step 2: Add Tasks Calendar

  1. Return to Add Calendar from URL page

  2. Add this URL:
    https://raw.githubusercontent.com/LeDataSciFi/ledatascifi-2025/refs/heads/main/content/about/fin377_tasks.ics

  3. Set up notifications as desired for “Tasks due for FIN377” calendar

Step 3: Add Your Class Section

If you’re in the 12:10pm section:

  1. Add this URL:
    https://raw.githubusercontent.com/LeDataSciFi/ledatascifi-2025/refs/heads/main/content/about/fin377_class1.ics

If you’re in the 1:35pm section:

  1. Add this URL:
    https://raw.githubusercontent.com/LeDataSciFi/ledatascifi-2025/refs/heads/main/content/about/fin377_class2.ics

Notes

  • The calendars will automatically update when changes are made

  • You can toggle calendars on/off using the checkboxes in the left sidebar if it clogs your calendar view

  • You can change the color of each calendar by clicking the colored circle next to the calendar name

  • You can not modify any events

Gratitude Need help?