Instructor

Prof. Vinay Kulkarni

Semester

3rd Sem

Course Difficulty

On a scale of 1 to 10 (with 10 being the most difficult in terms of both content and grading), I would rate this course a 5. If you complete all the assignments on time and dedicate 1-2 hours daily to the course project, this should be more than enough to get a good grade. The content is also not difficult to understand, a single thorough reading of the material should be sufficient to grasp the concepts.

Time Commitment Required

Devote about 1 hour daily to the course project. Normally, assignments can be completed in 2-3 hours in one sitting. The theory is not difficult, so spending 1 hour per week studying it should be enough.

Grading Policy and Statistics

AA 19 AB 35 AP 3 BB 55 BC 44 CC 17 CD 3 DD 3 FR 1 Total 180

Attendance Policy

We used to have attendance on SAFE and the professor had kept an attendance policy of>75%

Teaching Style

The professor focused more on practical/implementation part than theory. The classes were pretty slow and the contents were not rushed at all. Also, most of our evaluations were done via Assignments and Course Projects (we had 2 course projects). We had only 2 quizzes over the duration of the course which were focussed more towards the implementation and conceptual part of the material and we barely had to rote learn anything during the course. There was no midsem, but the professor did conduct endsem. The endsemester paper was very easy, someone with a good grasp of the basic concepts could’ve easily nailed the paper. 

Feedback on Assignments/ Tutorials/ Projects

The assignments were very helpful and covered all the topics in detail. They were well structured and not overly difficult, allowing students to learn a lot through independent completion. I recommend that students taking this course complete all the assignments on their own as they are not too time consuming and there is a lot to learn from these assignments. We had two course projects. The first one, given shortly after the midsems, was relatively smaller in scope. The final course project was conducted before the endsem. Both projects were very helpful and provided insights into the work of data scientists in the industry.

Course Importance

This course is extremely important for someone who’s pursuing a minor in CMInDS. This is a compulsory course to get a minor degree in CMInDS

Future Tracks

This course is very helpful for those who want to pursue a career as a Data Scientist or even an ML engineer

Additional Comments

If possible try to take this course in your third semester!

DS 203 Review By: Ashok Nayak