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DSC 40A

Theoretical Foundations of Data Science I

DSC 40A, Winter 2026 at UC San Diego 👋

Winter 2026

PCYNH 106

TUE & THUR 5:00PM - 6:20PM

Kyle Shannon (Data Soothsayer)

kshannon@ucsd.edu

Read the syllabus! Extra credit questions on the Midterm and Final will come from the syllabus. Check it out here. Office hours are listed under the Calendar tab.

Waitlist students: You are expected to attend from Day 1 and keep up with all course material. I accept all qualified students (those who meet prerequisites and have departmental approval). Only HDSI and the registrar can officially enroll you.

Week 1 - Modeling, Loss Functions, & Simple Linear Regression
📘 Read Chapter 1, Pages 1-12.
🍿 Watch Ahmed's Calc Review.

🧑‍🏫  Tue Jan 6

LEC 1 Introduction to Modeling (LIVE)
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HW Homework 0 (not due!)
problems solutions

🧑‍🏫  Thu Jan 8

LEC 2 Empirical Risk Minimization
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HOPS Hands-On Problem Solving 1
problems solutions

HW Homework 1 Released (due Jan 18, 11:59 pm)
problems template solutions

🧑‍🏫  Fri Jan 9

DISC Go over HW0 and LaTeX
problems solutions

Week 2 - Loss Functions & Simple Linear Regression
📘 Read Chapter 2, Pages 1-7.
📘 Read the spread notes.

🏠  Mon Jan 12

REV 1 How to Prove It! Proofing Review (Zoom)
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🧑‍🏫  Tue Jan 13

LEC 3 Comparing Loss Functions
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HOPS Hands-On Problem Solving 2
problems solutions

🧑‍🏫  Thu Jan 15

LEC 4 Simple Linear Regression
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HOPS Hands-On Problem Solving 3
problems solutions

🧑‍🏫  Fri Jan 16

DISC Groupwork 1
problems solutions

🧑‍🏫  Tue Jan 20

DEMO Demo 2 - Linear Regression

TALK Applications of Linear Regression
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HW Homework 2 Released (due Feb 1, 11:59 pm)
problems template code

LEC 5 Simple Linear Regression, Continued
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🏠  Wed Jan 21

REV 2 Linear Algebra Review (Zoom)
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🧑‍🏫  Thu Jan 22

HOPS Hands-On Problem Solving 4
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LEC 6 Dot Products and Projections
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🧑‍🏫  Fri Jan 23

DISC Groupwork 1 Review

Week 4 - Linear Algebra & Regression

🧑‍🏫  Tue Jan 27

HOPS Hands-On Problem Solving 5
problems solutions

LEC 7 Orthogonal Projections
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🧑‍🏫  Thu Jan 29

HOPS Hands-On Problem Solving 6
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LEC 8 Regression and Linear Algebra
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🧑‍🏫  Fri Jan 30

DISC Midterm Review

Week 5 - Linear Algebra & Regression

🧑‍🏫  Tue Feb 3

HOPS Hands-On Problem Solving 7

HW Homework 3 Released (due Feb 25, 11:59 pm)

LEC 9 Multiple Linear Regression
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🧑‍🏫  Thu Feb 5

EXAM Midterm Exam
study guide

🧑‍🏫  Fri Feb 6

DISC Go over Midterm Answers

Week 6 - Multiple Linear Regression & Feature Engineering

🧑‍🏫  Tue Feb 10

LEC 10 Feature Engineering, Gradient Descent
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🧑‍🏫  Thu Feb 12

DEMO Demo 3 - Loss Surface Navigation (Gradient Descent)

HOPS Hands-On Problem Solving 8

LEC 11 Gradient Descent, Continued
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🧑‍🏫  Fri Feb 13

DISC Groupwork 2

Week 7 - Gradient Descent
📘 Read Chapter 1, Pages 16-17.
📘 Read Notes on Convexity.

🧑‍🏫  Tue Feb 17

HOPS Hands-On Problem Solving 9

LEC 12 Foundations of Probability
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HW Homework 4 Released (due Mar 6, 11:59 pm)

🧑‍🏫  Thu Feb 19

DEMO Demo 5 - Interaction Terms

🧑‍🏫  Fri Feb 20

DISC Groupwork 2 Review

Week 8 - Probability & Combinatorics
📘 Read Janine's probability roadmap (in order):
       Roadmap with Questions  -  Roadmap with Answers  -  Summary
📘 Read Chapters 1 and 2 of this online Probability Textbook.
🍿 Watch Suraj's combinatoric problems.

🧑‍🏫  Tue Feb 24

HOPS Hands-On Problem Solving 10

LEC 13 Combinatorics
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🧑‍🏫  Thu Feb 26

LEC 14 More Combinatorics Examples
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HOPS Hands-On Problem Solving 11

🧑‍🏫  Fri Feb 27

DISC Groupwork 3

Week 9 - Probability & Independence
💪 Build intuition for probability.
💪 Build intuition for conditional probability.

🧑‍🏫  Tue Mar 3

LEC 15 Bayes' Theorem and Independence
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HOPS Hands-On Problem Solving 12

🧑‍🏫  Thu Mar 5

LEC 16 Independence and Conditional Independence
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HOPS Hands-On Problem Solving 13

🧑‍🏫  Fri Mar 6

DISC Groupwork 3 Review

Week 10 - Naïve Bayes & Course Conclusion
📘 Read Notes on Conditional Independence.

🧑‍🏫  Tue Mar 10

LEC 17 Naïve Bayes
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DEMO Demo 7 - Multi-Armed Bandit (Bayesian Updating)

🧑‍🏫  Thu Mar 12

LEC 18 More Naïve Bayes, Review
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LEC 19 Conclusion (LIVE)

🧑‍🏫  Fri Mar 13

DISC Final Exam Review

Week 11 - Final Exam Week

🧑‍🏫  Thu Mar 19

EXAM Final Exam