# Data Science for Beginners - A Curriculum

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Azure Cloud Advocates at Microsoft are pleased to offer a 10-week, 20-lesson curriculum all about Data Science. Each lesson includes pre-lesson and post-lesson quizzes, written instructions to complete the lesson, a solution, and an assignment. Our project-based pedagogy allows you to learn while building, a proven way for new skills to 'stick'.

**Hearty thanks to our authors:** [Jasmine Greenaway](https://www.twitter.com/paladique), [Dmitry Soshnikov](http://soshnikov.com), [Nitya Narasimhan](https://twitter.com/nitya), [Jalen McGee](https://twitter.com/JalenMcG), [Jen Looper](https://twitter.com/jenlooper), [Maud Levy](https://twitter.com/maudstweets), [Tiffany Souterre](https://twitter.com/TiffanySouterre), [Christopher Harrison](https://www.twitter.com/geektrainer).

**🙏 Special thanks 🙏 to our [Microsoft Student Ambassador](https://studentambassadors.microsoft.com/) authors, reviewers and content contributors,** notably Aaryan Arora, [Aditya Garg](https://github.com/AdityaGarg00), [Alondra Sanchez](https://www.linkedin.com/in/alondra-sanchez-molina/), [Ankita Singh](https://www.linkedin.com/in/ankitasingh007), [Anupam Mishra](https://www.linkedin.com/in/anupam--mishra/), [Arpita Das](https://www.linkedin.com/in/arpitadas01/), ChhailBihari Dubey, [Dibri Nsofor](https://www.linkedin.com/in/dibrinsofor), [Dishita Bhasin](https://www.linkedin.com/in/dishita-bhasin-7065281bb), [Majd Safi](https://www.linkedin.com/in/majd-s/), [Max Blum](https://www.linkedin.com/in/max-blum-6036a1186/), [Miguel Correa](https://www.linkedin.com/in/miguelmque/), [Mohamma Iftekher (Iftu) Ebne Jalal](https://twitter.com/iftu119), [Nawrin Tabassum](https://www.linkedin.com/in/nawrin-tabassum), [Raymond Wangsa Putra](https://www.linkedin.com/in/raymond-wp/), [Rohit Yadav](https://www.linkedin.com/in/rty2423), Samridhi Sharma, [Sanya Sinha](https://www.linkedin.com/mwlite/in/sanya-sinha-13aab1200),
[Sheena Narula](https://www.linkedin.com/in/sheena-narua-n/), [Tauqeer Ahmad](https://www.linkedin.com/in/tauqeerahmad5201/), Yogendrasingh Pawar , [Vidushi Gupta](https://www.linkedin.com/in/vidushi-gupta07/), [Jasleen Sondhi](https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasleen-sondhi/)

|:---:|
| Data Science For Beginners - _Sketchnote by [@nitya](https://twitter.com/nitya)_ |

## Announcement - New Curriculum on Generative AI was just released!

We just released a 12 lesson curriculum on generative AI. Come learn things like:

- prompting and prompt engineering
- text and image app generation
- search apps

As usual, there's a lesson, assignments to complete, knowledge checks and challenges.

Check it out:

> https://aka.ms/genai-beginners

# Are you a student?

Get started with the following resources:

- [Student Hub page](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-gb/learn/student-hub?WT.mc_id=academic-77958-bethanycheum) In this page, you will find beginner resources, Student packs and even ways to get a free cert voucher. This is one page you want to bookmark and check from time to time as we switch out content at least monthly.
- [Microsoft Learn Student Ambassadors](https://studentambassadors.microsoft.com?WT.mc_id=academic-77958-bethanycheum) Join a global community of student ambassadors, this could be your way into Microsoft.

# Getting Started

> **Teachers**: we have [included some suggestions](for-teachers.md) on how to use this curriculum.  We'd love your feedback [in our discussion forum](https://github.com/microsoft/Data-Science-For-Beginners/discussions)!

> **[Students](https://aka.ms/student-page)**: to use this curriculum on your own, fork the entire repo and complete the exercises on your own, starting with a pre-lecture quiz.  Then read the lecture and complete the rest of the activities. Try to create the projects by comprehending the lessons rather than copying the solution code; however, that code is available in the /solutions folders in each project-oriented lesson. Another idea would be to form a study group with friends and go through the content together. For further study, we recommend [Microsoft Learn](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/users/jenlooper-2911/collections/qprpajyoy3x0g7?WT.mc_id=academic-77958-bethanycheum).

## Meet the Team


**Gif by** [Mohit Jaisal](https://www.linkedin.com/in/mohitjaisal)

> 🎥 Click the image above for a video about the project  the folks who created it!

## Pedagogy

We have chosen two pedagogical tenets while building this curriculum: ensuring that it is project-based and that it includes frequent quizzes. By the end of this series, students will have learned basic principles of data science, including ethical concepts, data preparation, different ways of working with data, data visualization, data analysis, real-world use cases of data science, and more.

In addition, a low-stakes quiz before a class sets the intention of the student towards learning a topic, while a second quiz after class ensures further retention. This curriculum was designed to be flexible and fun and can be taken in whole or in part. The projects start small and become increasingly complex by the end of the 10 week cycle.

> Find our [Code of Conduct](CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md), [Contributing](CONTRIBUTING.md),  [Translation](TRANSLATIONS.md) guidelines. We welcome your constructive feedback!

## Each lesson includes:

- Optional sketchnote
- Optional supplemental video
- Pre-lesson warmup quiz
- Written lesson
- For project-based lessons, step-by-step guides on how to build the project
- Knowledge checks
- A challenge
- Supplemental reading
- Assignment
- Post-lesson quiz

> **A note about quizzes**: All quizzes are contained [in this app](https://purple-hill-04aebfb03.1.azurestaticapps.net/), for 40 total quizzes of three questions each. They are linked from within the lessons, but the quiz app can be run locally; follow the instruction in the `quiz-app` folder. They are gradually being localized.

## Lessons


|:---:|
| Data Science For Beginners: Roadmap - _Sketchnote by [@nitya](https://twitter.com/nitya)_ |


| Lesson Number | Topic | Lesson Grouping | Learning Objectives | Linked Lesson | Author |
| :-----------: | :----------------------------------------: | :--------------------------------------------------: | :-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------: | :---------------------------------------------------------------------: | :----: |
| 01 | Defining Data Science | [Introduction](1-Introduction/README.md) | Learn the basic concepts behind data science and how it’s related to artificial intelligence, machine learning, and big data. | [lesson](1-Introduction/01-defining-data-science/README.md) [video](https://youtu.be/beZ7Mb_oz9I) | [Dmitry](http://soshnikov.com) |
| 02 | Data Science Ethics | [Introduction](1-Introduction/README.md) | Data Ethics Concepts, Challenges & Frameworks. | [lesson](1-Introduction/02-ethics/README.md) | [Nitya](https://twitter.com/nitya) |
| 03 | Defining Data | [Introduction](1-Introduction/README.md) | How data is classified and its common sources. | [lesson](1-Introduction/03-defining-data/README.md) | [Jasmine](https://www.twitter.com/paladique) |
| 04 | Introduction to Statistics & Probability | [Introduction](1-Introduction/README.md) | The mathematical techniques of probability and statistics to understand data. | [lesson](1-Introduction/04-stats-and-probability/README.md) [video](https://youtu.be/Z5Zy85g4Yjw) | [Dmitry](http://soshnikov.com) |
| 05 | Working with Relational Data | [Working With Data](2-Working-With-Data/README.md) | Introduction to relational data and the basics of exploring and analyzing relational data with the Structured Query Language, also known as SQL (pronounced “see-quell”). | [lesson](2-Working-With-Data/05-relational-databases/README.md) | [Christopher](https://www.twitter.com/geektrainer) | | |
| 06 | Working with NoSQL Data | [Working With Data](2-Working-With-Data/README.md) | Introduction to non-relational data, its various types and the basics of exploring and analyzing document databases. | [lesson](2-Working-With-Data/06-non-relational/README.md) | [Jasmine](https://twitter.com/paladique)|
| 07 | Working with Python | [Working With Data](2-Working-With-Data/README.md) | Basics of using Python for data exploration with libraries such as Pandas. Foundational understanding of Python programming is recommended. | [lesson](2-Working-With-Data/07-python/README.md) [video](https://youtu.be/dZjWOGbsN4Y) | [Dmitry](http://soshnikov.com) |
| 08 | Data Preparation | [Working With Data](2-Working-With-Data/README.md) | Topics on data techniques for cleaning and transforming the data to handle challenges of missing, inaccurate, or incomplete data. | [lesson](2-Working-With-Data/08-data-preparation/README.md) | [Jasmine](https://www.twitter.com/paladique) |
| 09 | Visualizing Quantities | [Data Visualization](3-Data-Visualization/README.md) | Learn how to use Matplotlib to visualize bird data 🦆 | [lesson](3-Data-Visualization/09-visualization-quantities/README.md) | [Jen](https://twitter.com/jenlooper) |
| 10 | Visualizing Distributions of Data | [Data Visualization](3-Data-Visualization/README.md) | Visualizing observations and trends within an interval. | [lesson](3-Data-Visualization/10-visualization-distributions/README.md) | [Jen](https://twitter.com/jenlooper) |
| 11 | Visualizing Proportions | [Data Visualization](3-Data-Visualization/README.md) | Visualizing discrete and grouped percentages. | [lesson](3-Data-Visualization/11-visualization-proportions/README.md) | [Jen](https://twitter.com/jenlooper) |
| 12 | Visualizing Relationships | [Data Visualization](3-Data-Visualization/README.md) | Visualizing connections and correlations between sets of data and their variables. | [lesson](3-Data-Visualization/12-visualization-relationships/README.md) | [Jen](https://twitter.com/jenlooper) |
| 13 | Meaningful Visualizations | [Data Visualization](3-Data-Visualization/README.md) | Techniques and guidance for making your visualizations valuable for effective problem solving and insights. | [lesson](3-Data-Visualization/13-meaningful-visualizations/README.md) | [Jen](https://twitter.com/jenlooper) |
| 14 | Introduction to the Data Science lifecycle | [Lifecycle](4-Data-Science-Lifecycle/README.md) | Introduction to the data science lifecycle and its first step of acquiring and extracting data. | [lesson](4-Data-Science-Lifecycle/14-Introduction/README.md) | [Jasmine](https://twitter.com/paladique) |
| 15 | Analyzing | [Lifecycle](4-Data-Science-Lifecycle/README.md) | This phase of the data science lifecycle focuses on techniques to analyze data. | [lesson](4-Data-Science-Lifecycle/15-analyzing/README.md) | [Jasmine](https://twitter.com/paladique) | | |
| 16 | Communication | [Lifecycle](4-Data-Science-Lifecycle/README.md) | This phase of the data science lifecycle focuses on presenting the insights from the data in a way that makes it easier for decision makers to understand. | [lesson](4-Data-Science-Lifecycle/16-communication/README.md) | [Jalen](https://twitter.com/JalenMcG) | | |
| 17 | Data Science in the Cloud | [Cloud Data](5-Data-Science-In-Cloud/README.md) | This series of lessons introduces data science in the cloud and its benefits. | [lesson](5-Data-Science-In-Cloud/17-Introduction/README.md) | [Tiffany](https://twitter.com/TiffanySouterre) and [Maud](https://twitter.com/maudstweets) |
| 18 | Data Science in the Cloud | [Cloud Data](5-Data-Science-In-Cloud/README.md) | Training models using Low Code tools. |[lesson](5-Data-Science-In-Cloud/18-Low-Code/README.md) | [Tiffany](https://twitter.com/TiffanySouterre) and [Maud](https://twitter.com/maudstweets) |
| 19 | Data Science in the Cloud | [Cloud Data](5-Data-Science-In-Cloud/README.md) | Deploying models with Azure Machine Learning Studio. | [lesson](5-Data-Science-In-Cloud/19-Azure/README.md)| [Tiffany](https://twitter.com/TiffanySouterre) and [Maud](https://twitter.com/maudstweets) |
| 20 | Data Science in the Wild | [In the Wild](6-Data-Science-In-Wild/README.md) | Data science driven projects in the real world. | [lesson](6-Data-Science-In-Wild/20-Real-World-Examples/README.md) | [Nitya](https://twitter.com/nitya) |

## GitHub Codespaces

Follow these steps to open this sample in a Codespace:
1. Click the Code drop-down menu and select the Open with Codespaces option.
2. Select + New codespace at the bottom on the pane.
For more info, check out the [GitHub documentation](https://docs.github.com/en/codespaces/developing-in-codespaces/creating-a-codespace-for-a-repository#creating-a-codespace).

## VSCode Remote - Containers
Follow these steps to open this repo in a container using your local machine and VSCode using  the VS Code Remote - Containers extension:

1. If this is your first time using a development container, please ensure your system meets the pre-reqs (i.e. have Docker installed) in [the getting started documentation](https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/devcontainers/containers#_getting-started).

To use this repository, you can either open the repository in an isolated Docker volume:

**Note**: Under the hood, this will use the Remote-Containers: **Clone Repository in Container Volume...** command to clone the source code in a Docker volume instead of the local filesystem. [Volumes](https://docs.docker.com/storage/volumes/) are the preferred mechanism for persisting container data.

Or open a locally cloned or downloaded version of the repository:

- Clone this repository to your local filesystem.
- Press F1 and select the **Remote-Containers: Open Folder in Container...** command.
- Select the cloned copy of this folder, wait for the container to start, and try things out.

## Offline access

You can run this documentation offline by using [Docsify](https://docsify.js.org/#/). Fork this repo, [install Docsify](https://docsify.js.org/#/quickstart) on your local machine,  then in the root folder of this repo, type `docsify serve`. The website will be served on port 3000 on your localhost: `localhost:3000`.

> Note, notebooks will not be rendered via Docsify, so when you need to run a notebook, do that separately in VS Code running a Python kernel.

## Help Wanted!

If you would like to translate all or part of the curriculum, please follow our [Translations](TRANSLATIONS.md) guide.

## Other Curricula

Our team produces other curricula! Check out:

- [AI for Beginners](https://aka.ms/ai-beginners)
- [Data Science for Beginners](https://aka.ms/datascience-beginners)
- [Generative AI for Beginners](https://aka.ms/genai-beginners)
- [**NEW** Cybersecurity for Beginners](https://github.com/microsoft/Security-101??WT.mc_id=academic-96948-sayoung)
- [Web Dev for Beginners](https://aka.ms/webdev-beginners?WT.mc_id=academic-113596-abartolo)
- [IoT for Beginners](https://aka.ms/iot-beginners)
- [Machine Learning for Beginners](https://aka.ms/ml-beginners)
- [XR Development for Beginners](https://aka.ms/xr-dev-for-beginners)
- [Mastering GitHub Copilot for AI Paired Programming](https://aka.ms/GitHubCopilotAI)

## How To Use This Imported Curriculum

- Treat this as an external course library embedded inside Zero to AI, not as the canonical repo navigation path.
- Use it when you want a more structured beginner-friendly walkthrough of core data-science ideas.
- Prioritize the section READMEs below rather than trying to consume the entire imported course at once.

## What Comes Next

- Start with [1-Introduction/README.md](1-Introduction/README.md) if you want the gentlest entry point.
- Continue through the section hubs in order if you want the original Microsoft progression.
- Return to [../../README.md](../../README.md) if you want the Zero to AI phase-level roadmap instead of the imported one.
