Introduction to Data Science (CS 418)

Materials for CS 418: Intro to Data Science at UIC. I'm building this out during Summer 2026, in preparation for the Fall 2026 semester. I'm aiming to develop an adventurous, practice-based approach to data science, with lots of exercises to do "by hand" (I was inspired by Tom Yeh's "AI by Hand" series).

Sources consulted

• Core data science texts
  • Learning Data Science by Sam Lau, Joseph Gonzalez, and Deborah Nolan (UC Berkeley)
  • Doing Data Science by Rachel Schutt and Cathy O'Neil (O'Reilly)
  • Python Data Science Handbook by Jake VanderPlas (O'Reilly)
  • Computational and Inferential Thinking by Ani Adhikari and John DeNero (UC Berkeley)
  • Data Science: A First Introduction (Python edition) by Tiffany Timbers, Trevor Campbell, Melissa Lee, Joel Ostblom, and Lindsey Heagy (UBC)
• Statistics and machine learning
  • Intro to Statistical Learning by Gareth James, Daniela Witten, Trevor Hastie, and Robert Tibshirani (Stanford)
  • A Course in Machine Learning by Hal Daume III (UMD)
  • Mining of Massive Datasets by Jure Leskovec, Anand Rajaraman, and Jeffrey Ullman (Cambridge/Stanford)
  • Think Stats (3rd ed.) by Allen B. Downey (Olin College)
  • Statistical Rethinking 2026 lecture series and course repo by Richard McElreath
• Visualization and ethics
  • Fundamentals of Data Visualization by Claus O. Wilke (UT Austin)
  • Data Feminism by Catherine D'Ignazio and Lauren F. Klein (MIT Press)
  • Data Feminism for Data Visualization by Lauren F. Klein and Catherine D'Ignazio (Open Visualization Academy)
  • Practical Data Ethics by Rachel Thomas (fast.ai)
  • Open Visualization Academy (Alberto Cairo)
  • Calling Bullshit course materials, case studies, and lectures by Carl Bergstrom and Jevin West (University of Washington)

Thanks also to Elena Zheleva and Gonzalo Bello Lander, who generously shared their course materials.

Materials in progress

• HTML syllabus
• Slide decks
  • Week 0 demo deck: HTML | PDF
• Frequently asked questions
• Ethics in Data Science Mini-book
• CTA-Style Timer

Worksheets

• Worksheet template

Schedule

Schedule is a draft/ work-in-progress.