Data Science Dojo

My name is Kevin Hillaker.  I recently transitioned to data engineer in the manufacturing industry. To be honest, I was overwhelmed with the breadth and depth of the field.

Attending DataScienceDojo was a smart move.  The pre-work and boot camp have allowed me to better understand what it takes to be successful in the field, and some of the pitfalls to watch out for as a new practitioner.  I presume the same is true for the post-bootcamp coursework (I’ll know soon enough).

With this new found information, I believe I am now on a trajectory to develop a domain specific methodology.  The boot camp provided tools to evaluate data, engineer features, build and evaluate models. 

All of the topics covered were presented in a way anyone can learn.  Further, questions were actively encouraged.  Participants were continuously challenged to think outside the box and apply their past experiences to the data challenges presented.  Overall, this was a thoroughly enjoyable experience.

I would advise anyone interested to reach out DataScienceDojo to begin their journey.

I just completed the Chicago bootcamp and I can say that the Data Science Dojo team exceeded my expectations.  I had some R coding experience (but no formal education) and work in the derivatives industry, using statistics and regressions pretty regularly, so I had some strengths in a few areas, but my skills and stats theory were very very rusty.  I did a great deal of homework on competitors and settled on Raja's team, in no small part due to the location as I am a Chicago local, but also due to:

• R/Python flexibility
• Strong curriculum (and professor) in machine learning
• End-to end hands on experience with trade practitioners 
• Interaction and energy that comes with a bootcamp

 I expected to learn a great deal, but I also assumed I would be swimming in confusion more often than not. I had, after all, spent more than a semester in grad school trying to find a rhythm while also trying a variety of online learning supplements.  There is so much out there, the landscape changes quickly, and many schools are willing to charge for Data Science courses because the subject is hot, but they don't produce any of the materials, and therefore everything is choppy and incoherent.  This confusion was not the case in Bootcamp, as the lessons were clear, logical, and consistent.  The lessons were also an excellent mix of intuitive and informational instruction, demonstration, hands on walk through of each and every step, intellectual challenge, and the application of working toward and completing kaggle project.   The intellectual challenge, by the way, can be scaled to meet anyone's learning needs, in my opinion, as this team is very well educated and well heeled in the space...and definitely effective educators as well.   

I could go on for a while, but I would ultimately need to address every point in the curriculum because everything was worthy of mention.  Suffice to say that I am now comfortable scraping websites, parsing twitter feeds, building machine learning models in R and Azure ML, acquiring and utilizing Hadoop clusters, setting up an eventhub...and even better, I have a sizable toolkit to do build upon going forward.  I still need to practice to get better, but I have everything I need to take my career and my understanding of the world to another level.   

Don't waste your time anywhere else.   The Dojo will exceed your expectations as well. 

I attended the 3-day Hands on Introduction to Data Science. Raja is an amazing instructor, and Arham is kind and patient. These two make a great team. Using Azure Machine Learning tools was a great way to build models and deploy them. The material that was covered was fairly comprehensive and I personally learned more than I thought possible. I do feel that the material is not meant for a 3-day course, so at times it did not feel like a smooth transition from one topic to another. Also, this course is most appropriate for those that have current data science/programming knowledge-it was not truly meant for beginners. This course is a great introduction to the topic, and I highly recommend it. 

The DSD team pulled off a successful balance of two things: packing as much content as possible into the bootcamp and making sure you understood and absorbed it (not just firehosing it). I remember one particular session where the instructor deliberately and patiently asked and answered questions over and over again to make sure that no one left the room with a key concept zooming over our heads. I left with a lot of fresh questions to explore on my own, and you have to own your own journey, but got led a good way down the path by the team. I particularly appreciate DSD's values in hosting an after-hours broader conversation about using AI for social good and for accommodating the challenges of my disability.

This class has a lot to offer and has a bunch of general knowledge. If you are a HR person trying to understand what Data Science positions entail, then this will be a great class. If you are working Data Science this class will drag out. The class is very lecture driven and 10 hours of just talking is absolutely mind numbing. Even then when you go to the 'excercises' you just copy and paste their code. If you want to really learn this is not the class. You will have to spend hours going back through and doing the excercises in a real manner. The CEO/teacher also is not too famililar with customer service, you can definelty tell that he is in this business for profit. He will tell students that they are wrong or "I didn't say that". I wouldn't say this is encouraging any type of learning. I recommend that the CEO revise the material or hire someone who knows how to teach and encourage more interaction. If they structured the class to be 2 hours of lecture and 8 hours of doing then they would have sooooo much to offer. I am a little dissapointed by the class. I did get some golden nuggets but, it could be better. 

I have been a data enthusiast for over a decade but when I wanted to venture into the world of Data Science, I started exploring different courses online and pretty soon I felt overwhelmed and lost due to the lack of proper direction.

Then I came across Data Science Dojo and wanted to give it a try solely based on the reviews and testimonials from prior students. There is no kidding about the overwhelmingly positive reviews, without a doubt, it was an incredible weeklong learning experience. Thanks to Mr. Dave Langer and Mr. Phuc Duong, the amazingly talented instructors from Data Science Dojo, I'm very confident about my future in the world of Data Science now.

Here are a few things I really liked about the bootcamp:

-- Preparing the students before the bootcamp with pre-bootcamp material. I strongly feel that it will prepare you to be more productive during the bootcamp

-- Engaging the students with interactive fun-filled sessions, Slack, Labs and Kaggle competition

-- Teaching the concepts behind different machine learning algorithms

-- The flow and the content of the course material

-- Amazingly talented instructors with a will and skill to teach