TIPS

DSCI 100 Survival Guide

In fall 2021, the DSCI100 TAs posted this super helpful survival guide on Piazza based on their own past experiences taking the class. There are a lot of good tips & advice here, so I made it part of the official course Canvas page. Thanks TAs!

A message from TAs past and present

Hi everyone! We’ve put together this guide to help you succeed in this class (both in-person and online). Since success can mean different things for different people, we’ll define it to encompass an understanding of the concepts, enjoyment of the class, and a good final mark.

DSCI 100 has a few different forms of assessments, each one made for a reason. We’ve listed them below, along with tips on how to get maximum value from them.

Worksheets are designed to help teach a concept (alongside the lectures). They will guide you through problems and hold your hand as you go through them. A big piece of advice before you do worksheets is to do the pre-readings! DSCI 100’s pre-readings don’t take long, are well-written and readable, and are full of information that will make the worksheets easier to do. We highly recommend doing the pre-readings before each lecture and worksheet.

Next up we have tutorials. They are a continuation of the worksheet in that they cover the same concepts, just through different questions and scenarios. Tutorials are more challenging than worksheets as they won’t provide as much guidance. Instead, you’ll be required to do more on your own. As this might result in more error messages, I’ll go over some debugging tips. (1) Read the error message! Errors often come from silly mistakes (misspelled words, forgotten “)”, etc.) and are easy to fix if you read the error message. (2) If your kernel is running for a long time (>30 seconds), restart and run all. This can be found through the top bar, under Kernel > Restart & Run all. A solid understanding of the concept (achieved through readings, worksheets, and asking questions in lectures, tutorials, and office hours) will make tutorials easier.

For both worksheets and tutorials, we encourage having the textbook open while you work! Sometimes things don’t stick if you take notes on the textbook before you do the hands-on activities, but having the textbook open helps you form better connections between the material and the applications of each point. We also recommend giving the whole assignment a scan before you start on it. This is true especially if you’re busy. Doing a quick scan is helpful to gauge the workload of the assignment so you don’t end up rushing it 30 minutes before it’s due!

Quizzes are held three times during the term to test your understanding of the concepts. The first two will be during the regular term, and the third will be in Exam Week. They are not cumulative. Preparation for quizzes is similar to how you would prep for an exam - everyone studies slightly differently so we won’t go over the specifics. In general, I would highly recommend going over the readings/textbook, worksheets, and tutorials. Even though the quiz is open book, time is not unlimited so you have to know the material/concepts well! My worst quiz (based on the mark I got) was Quiz 1: I didn’t budget my time well and relied on it being open book to answer the questions; that led to me scrambling in the latter portion as time ran out. Quiz 2 and 3 went better for me, even though the material is (according to me) harder. Use the fact that the quizzes are open book as a quick reference when needed, not as your go-to way of answering a question (Eg. is it read_csv(…) or csv_read(…)?).

There is also a project later in the term. More details and tips will be provided as we get closer to that.

DSCI 100 is not a course designed to trick you. As long as you do the work (which doesn’t even take too long!), you will be rewarded. If you have any questions, always feel free to ask. Lectures, tutorials, office hours, and Piazza are all there to help you learn. We have a bunch of TAs ready to answer questions (and if we don’t know the answer, we’ll help find someone/some website/something that does know the answer). The textbook was made specifically for this course, so it’s a fantastic (and free) resource – it’s so good that it was mentioned as being helpful for worksheets, tutorials, and quizzes.

Thank you for reading this! We hope you have a great and safe semester, and that you enjoy DSCI 100!

Cheers,

DSCI 100 TAs