Math 280: Mathematics for Data Science
Josh Laison

Syllabus
Course Canvas site
Course WebWork site

Course calendar: (subject to change)
Monday Wednesday Friday
Week 1 Aug 24: First day of class!
Vectors and vector algebra
Aug 26: Dot products, projections, lines and planes in 2D and 3D
Aug 28: Span and linear independence
WebWork 1 due.
Week 2 Aug 31: Introduction to Python
Conceptual homework 1 due.
Sep 2: Introduction to Principal Component Analysis
Webwork 2 due.
Sep 4: Matrices and matrix algebra.
Week 3 Sep 7: Labor Day, no class today. Sep 9: Quiz 1 on vectors, in class today. Sep 11: Matrix inverses
Webwork 3 due.
Week 4 Sep 14: Determinants
Applied homework 1 due.
Sep 16: Eigenvalues
Conceptual homework 2 due.
Sep 18: Eigenvalues continued
Webwork 4 due.
Week 5 Sep 21: Introduction to Markov chains Sep 23: Quiz 2 on matrix algebra, matrix inverses, and determinants, in class today. Sep 25: Similar matrices
Webwork 5 due.
Week 6 Sep 28: Diagonalization
Conceptual assignment 3 due.
Sep 30: Orthogonal matrices Oct 2: Orthogonal diagonalization
Applied assignment 2 due
Week 7 Oct 5: Singular value decomposition part 1 Oct 7: Singular value decomposition part 2
Webwork 6 due
Oct 9: Mid semester break, no class today.
Week 8 Oct 12: Quiz 3 in class today Oct 14: Surfaces
Conceptual assignment 4 due
Oct 16: Partial derivatives
Webwork 7 due
Week 9 Oct 19: Directional derivatives
Applied assignment 3 due
Oct 21: Optimization
Webwork 8 due
Oct 23: Quiz 4 in class today
Week 10 Oct 26: Lagrange multipliers Oct 28: Gradient descent Oct 30: Quadratic forms
Webwork 9 due
Week 11 Nov 2: Quadratic forms and second derivatives Nov 4: Optimization with quadratic forms
Applied assignment 4 due
Nov 6: Quiz 5 in class today
Week 12 Nov 9: Random variables
Webwork 10 due
Nov 11: Joint random variables and covariance Nov 13: Covariance matrices
Conceptual assignment 6 due
Week 13 Nov 16: PCA using covariance
Webwork 11 due
Nov 18: Quiz 6 in class today Nov 20: PCA using covariance continued
Webwork 12 due
Week 14 Nov 23: Nov 25: Fall break, no class today. Nov 27: Fall break, no class today.
Week 15 Nov 30: PCA using covariance continued
Applied assignment 5 due
Dec 2: Dec 4: Last day of class
Dec 7: Final exam 2:00-5:00