modern education in a post-modern world
DESCRIPTION
Data Science is a comparatively new field and as such it is constantly changing as new techniques, tools, and problems emerge every day. Traditionally education has taken a top down approach where courses are developed on the scale of years and committees approve curricula based on what might be the most theoretically complete approach. This is at odds however with an evolving industry that needs data scientists faster than they can be (traditionally) trained. Zipfian Academy is a new type of program borne out of the misalignment of current educational institutions' motivations and those of a dynamic industry. If we are to sustainably push the field of Data Science forward, we must collectively figure out how to best scale this type of education. At Zipfian, we teach data science and data engineering through an immersive 12-week project-based course with assignments built by practicing data scientists based on industry case studies. And by leveraging a collaborative learning environment we can most effectively teach complex topics and modern tools (like GraphLab).TRANSCRIPT
Jonathan Dinu Co-Founder, Zipfian Academy
[email protected] @clearspandex
@ZipfianAcademy
Modern Education in a Post-Modern World
July 21st, 2014
Today
• The current (modern) State of Education
• Our (post-modern) Methodology
• Productionizing the Products (i.e. the industry)
• GraphLab in the Classroom
• Our School
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Disclaimer:
This presentation contains strong opinions that
you may or may not agree with. All thoughts are
my own.
* I love higher education, and am grateful for everything it has given me. And for the tireless hours professors spend to make sure that their students understand.
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Cultural Studies
A Short Interlude…
Source: https://blogs.lt.vt.edu/rpstephens/2012/09/14/modernism-vs-postmodernism/Questions? tweet @zipfianacademy
Modernism
mod•ern•ism: a philosophical movement that, along with
cultural trends and changes, arose from wide-
scale and far-reaching transformations in Western
society in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ModernismQuestions? tweet @zipfianacademy
The Reverend
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_BayesQuestions? tweet @zipfianacademy
Universities
Universities are incentivized to produce high quality professors…
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Universities
Who do cutting edge research and write (well cited) papers in peer
reviewed journals
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Universities
And give good grades?
Graduation and retention rank 6-year graduation rate
Average freshman retention rate
Source: http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/Questions? tweet @zipfianacademy
UniversitiesAnd give good grades?
Source: http://www.gradeinflation.com/Questions? tweet @zipfianacademy
Universities
Source: http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/
To Exceptional students…
Student selectivity rank Financial resources rank
SAT/ACT 25th-75th percentile Alumni giving rank
Freshmen in top 10 percent of high school class Average alumni giving rate
Freshmen in top 25 percent of high school class
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Employment
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But this is at odds with what (many) students want
Employment
Source: Mckinsey Report (http://mckinseyonsociety.com/downloads/reports/Education/Education-to-Employment_FINAL.pdf)
% o
f Gra
duat
es
0
0.25
0.5
0.75
1
Students Employers Schools
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Entry level Preparedness
Employment
Source: Kim Polese (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6Q0nkRjD80)Questions? tweet @zipfianacademy
Employment
Source: http://www.nerdwallet.com/nerdscholar/grad_surveys/highest-employment-rates
University of Massachusetts-Amherst School of Nursing
98%
Georgetown University McDonough School of Business
94%
Michigan State University College of Nursing
92%
Syracuse University School of Architecture
90%
University of Massachusetts-Amherst Isenberg School of Management
90%
Michigan State University School of Hospitality Business
89%
New York University 88%
Boston College Connell School of Nursing
88%
Boston College Carroll School of Management
87%
Case Western Reserve University Frances Payne Bolton School of Nursing
86%
Highest Employment Rates (2012)
1. Princeton University
2. Harvard University
3. Yale University
4. Columbia University
5. Stanford University
6. University of Chicago
7. Duke University
8. MIT
9. University of Pennsylvania
10. California Institue of Technology
U.S. News and World Report Ranking
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Postmodernism
Post•mod•ern•ism: a late-20th-century movement in the
arts, architecture, and criticism that was
a departure from modernism.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PostmodernismQuestions? tweet @zipfianacademy
Our Methodology
• Outcomes focused
• Project-based curriculum using real datasets
• Guest lectures from leaders in the field
• Mock interviews and hiring preparation
• Full instructional staff + personal mentorship
Questions? tweet @zipfianacademy
Our Methodology
Commun
ity Education
Industry
Meetup
Student Groups
Corporate Training
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Students program. Python for 10hrs/day
Our Methodology
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Students program Python. for 10hrs/day
Our Methodology
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Students program Python for 10hrs/day.
Our Methodology
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Students program Python for 10hrs/day.
SQL
Our Methodology
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Students program Python for 10hrs/day.
UNIX
SQL
Our Methodology
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Students program Python for 10hrs/day
UNIX
SQL
to solve data science problems.
Our Methodology
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Students program Python for 10hrs/day
case studies.
UNIX
SQL
to solve data science problems.
Our Methodology
Questions? tweet @zipfianacademy
Students program Python for 10hrs/day
case studies.
projects.
UNIX
SQL
to solve data science problems.
Our Methodology
Questions? tweet @zipfianacademy
Industry
But we can all learn from each other…
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Industry
Questions? tweet @zipfianacademy #pydata Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modernism
But we can all learn from each other…
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Industry Student Projects
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Production
Questions? tweet @zipfianacademy Source: http://graphlab.com/products/create/overview.html
Pipeline
Acquisition
Parse
Storage
Transform/Explore
Vectorization
Train
Model
Expose
Presentation
requests
BeautifulSoup4
pandas
pymongo
Flask
yHat
scikit-learn/NLTK
Questions? tweet @zipfianacademy
Acquisition
Parse
Storage
Transform/Explore
Vectorization
Train
Model
Expose
Presentation
requests
BeautifulSoup4
Flask
Questions? tweet @zipfianacademy
pandas
pymongo
yHat
scikit-learn/NLTK
Pipeline
GraphLab
Acquisition
Parse
Storage
Transform/Explore
Vectorization
Train
Model
Expose
Presentation
requests
BeautifulSoup4
Questions? tweet @zipfianacademy
Flask
Our Methodology
Questions? tweet @zipfianacademy #pydata Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modernism
• Outcomes focused
• Project-based curriculum using real datasets
• Guest lectures from leaders in the field
• Mock interviews and hiring preparation
• Full instructional staff + personal mentorship
Questions? tweet @zipfianacademy
The Programs
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Program Data Science Immersive
Data Science Fellowship
Data Engineering Immersive
Duration 12 Weeks 6 Weeks 12 Weeks
Prerequisites• Programming
Experience
• Quantitative Background
• Data Science Experience
• Knowledge of Machine Learning
Software Engineering Experience
Curriculum
• Stats/Probability • Machine Learning • NLP • Anomaly Detection • Social Network Analysis
Capstone Project
• Distributed Systems • ETL Pipelines • Databases • Stream Processing • Scalable Algorithms
Price $16,000 FREE! $16,000
Timeline
STRUCTURED CURRICULUM
HIRING DAY
CAPSTONE PROJECT
GRADUATION
0 8 10.5 12
INTERVIEWS
Data Science Immersive
Data Fellowship Start
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!
• Working knowledge of programming
• Background in a quantitative discipline
• Comfortable with mathematics and statistics
• Child-like curiosity
What We Look For
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!
• Working knowledge of programming
• Background in a quantitative discipline
• Comfortable with mathematics and statistics
• Child-like curiosity
What We Look For
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!
• Present a guest lecture or share a data story
• Donate datasets and propose projects
• Sponsor a scholarship
• Attend our Hiring Day (July 31st)
Get Involved
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!
• Full-time & Part-time Instructors
• TAs
• Data Scientist in Residence
• Mentor (volunteer)
We’re Hiring!
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