Course Overview

Course Structure

The Netflix Advanced Data Science Boot Camp is a 16-week course. The classes meet twice a week for three hours each. Every class combines lectures, demonstrations, and in-class activities.

Schedule Overview

The boot camp will adhere to the following high-level schedule:

  • Unit I: Databases and Data Engineering:

    • Model and design tables and schemas for databases
    • Use SQL to analyze data
    • Use Python to extract, transform, and load data into databases

  • Unit II: Big Data and PySpark:

    • Define big data and describe the challenges associated with it
    • Explain how use Hadoop and MapReduce to process big data
    • Query data at any scale with Spark and PySpark

  • Unit III: Machine Learning:

    • Define the major components of machine learning and how they are applied in industry
    • Prepare and train machine learning models for making data predictions and automating decisions
    • Evaluate and tune machine learning models for production

  • Unit IV: Neural Networks and Natural Language Processing:

    • Describe a neural network model and its components
    • Implement neural network models using TensorFlow and Keras
    • Process text and language using natural language processing

Assignments and Grading Breakdown

Your course grade will depend on in-class participation, homework assignments, assessments, and projects as follows:

  • Attendance/Participation - 10%
  • Eleven Assignments - 30%
  • Four unit Assessments - 20%
  • Midterm project - 20%
  • Final project - 20%

Now that you know the graduation requirements, you may be wondering how to actually accomplish these requirements.

  • Attendance and participation: This is a fast-moving course so you should expect to show up and participate during in-class exercises for every session; unless you've notified your instructor in advance.

  • Take-home assignments: Take-home assignments will ask you to apply the skills covered in each lesson to create a working production-ready application.

  • Unit assessments: Unit assessments will test your programming knowledge and skills after each unit.

  • Projects: Projects will require you to apply all the technical skills covered in each unit in order to develop a portfolio-ready deliverable that is ready to be published in the cloud.

You are expected to do your own work and write your own code. When using external code blocks or APIs, you should comment to indicate copied snippets. Throughout the course, you will be asked to present your work and explain your choices, including describing how your code is intended to work.

Now that you have a glimpse of the big picture, let’s dig into the details of the course.

A Week in the Life

While each week covers different topics, the classroom learning experience is consistent. A typical class consists of the following components:

  • Class activities: These are instructor lectures and activities in which the whole class takes part.

  • Small-group activities: These are activities for either small groups or pairs that everyone completes.

  • Independent activities: These are individual activities that everyone completes.

As you progress through the course, the makeup of this mix will change as you become more independent and proficient with key concepts.

Class Meetings on Zoom

Our course is facilitated via Zoom, with different arrangements depending on the activity type, as follows:

  • Class activities: During a class activity, the whole class stays in the same Zoom room and shares the Presenter view.

  • Small-group activities: When we split up for a small-group activity, your instructor will assign a breakout room to your group. There, you can work together in private. The instructor and the TAs will make their rounds to each room, but you can always reach them through direct messages in Slack as well.

  • Independent activities: During an independent activity, everyone returns to the same shared Zoom room that the class activities use. During an independent activity, please mute your audio and turn off your camera. If you have a question, send a direct message to your TAs and your instructor, who will also monitor Slack for common questions. If needed, they will direct you to breakout rooms with other students.

Support

As mentioned earlier, you're not in this alone. This section describes the community of support that you'll receive from various people.

Instructor

Your instructor is the lead facilitator for your learning experience. Instructors have practical experience in the field, so they're exceptional resources for offering insight, examples, and advice to help you succeed. The instructor manages all the virtual classes, guides the TA team, and monitors your progress.

TAs

TAs offer support, guidance, and critical feedback and evaluations of your assignment submissions. TAs attend the virtual classes, help troubleshoot issues, and lead small breakout groups.

Student Success Manager

Your SSM is the person to contact for any questions about the course structure, delivery, or policies. If you're personally or academically struggling—or feel that you need support in some other way, don't hesitate to reach out to your SSM! In other words, if you don’t know where to go, whom to ask, or what to do, start with your SSM!

Your SSM is available during standard business hours via both Slack and email.

Peers

During the course, you'll chat with other students, ask for help, and assist others both in the class and via Slack and Zoom. Research in online learning shows that the students who answer questions from their peers perform the best. It makes sense! A terrific way to solidify new learning is to talk about and explain things to others.

Slack

Slack deserves its own mention. Slack is a community space where you can converse with classmates and ask the TAs questions. We encourage you to follow the Read-Search-Ask method. If you get stuck, start by thoroughly reading the course content. Then search for answers online (ask your instructional team for tips about places to search). Finally, if you still feel stuck, ask your question in Slack. Remember that a goal of the course is to train you on how to problem solve as you learn new technologies in the workplace.