Capstone Project

Through the semester-long capstone project, students get a taste for working in the industry, conducting real-world analytics projects using data provided by sponsoring organizations. Capstone students work in teams of three to four to understand their sponsor's business problem, clean and analyze data, and devise an appropriate solution. Students also explore ethical issues related to the use of data science.

The capstone project is available to upper-class students, and satisfies an upper-level writing requirement.

Visit the data science capstone website to view descriptions of recent capstone projects, news articles, and testimonials.

Schedule

  • Weeks one and two: Students attend classes and lectures on project management concepts, data science lifecycle concepts, data visualization, and review data cleaning.
  • Weeks three and four: Representatives of companies and other organizations present their projects to students. Students are assigned to projects based on preferences and their individual skill sets.
  • Weeks five through ten: Students work on their project, directly communicating weekly or biweekly with company sponsors.
  • Weeks eleven and twelve: Students give final presentations and write individual final reports. Final versions of developed software code are archived and submitted to the sponsoring organizations as deliverables.

For a more detailed look at what the capstone project entails check out ‘Real world’ data science projects benefit sponsors, students.