3 minute read
Data scientist designs Foundations of R course he wishes he had taken
By Adam S. Kamras
Ryan Harrington
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Foundations of for Data Analysis Certificate instructor
With a career in data science, extensive practice with the R programming language and experience as a teacher, Ryan Harrington was a perfect candidate to serve as the instructor for the Foundations of R for Data Analysis Certificate program introduced by UD PCS last fall. Since Harrington had never taken a class like the one he was tasked with leading, he drew on what he would have liked to have been taught as he created his syllabus.
“When I started my own personal data journey, I really had to learn by trial and error,” said Harrington, an associate director at the Delaware Data Innovation Lab (DDIL), where he develops data science projects. “My master’s program in business analytics was phenomenal, but there wasn’t a course to learn the basics of R. If I had a course like this in week zero of me becoming a data scientist, it would have accelerated me through some of the growing pains I had to go through on my own. Everything that I am teaching is something that I wish I had learned when I was beginning my career.”
Previously the lead data scientist at CompassRed Data Labs and a high school math teacher, Harrington designed the class to operate in a format he would have most benefited from as a novice learner by focusing on practical applications, learning by doing and leveraging a community.
“This is definitely not a theoretical course; this is a practical course,” said Harrington. “Everything the students do is focused on how can they take it and use it the next day at work, in their lab or in school. This is not something that can be learned by people lecturing at them. We code within the first hour of the first class.”
Treating data science as a team sport, the students work together and share code with each other. Beyond the class, Harrington is hoping to connect the participants with the rich community of coders across the world and also build a smaller community that can last beyond the course.
“At the end of this course, students are past the beginner level of R and inching their way toward intermediate status,” said Harrington. “My goal is to make it easier for people to take their learning in whatever direction they want to. There is so much more to learn, but by having the foundations of R, this makes that learning so much easier.”
