For the final project, you’re working on developing a story or hypothesis around the theme of Data Science and Education. This article, “Big Data on Campus”, appeared in the New York Times (in cooperation with the Chronicle of Higher Education) over the summer and explores ways in which universities are starting to use technology that depends on machine learning algorithms to personalize education and identify students in trouble. This is background reading and illustrates one of the ways Data Science and Education come together. One of the featured companies, Knewton, is a New York City-based start-up down in Union Square.

In full disclosure and as a matter of interest, the author, Marc Parry and I went to high school together, were good friends and worked on the school newspaper together. Further still we went to college together at the University of Michigan! We were a couple years apart. Further still, he has a journalism degree from Columbia.