The goal of MDS Capstone Project is to provide technical and professional Data Science training and to reinforce the skills you learned in the course work in a realistic situation. It will provide you with hands-on experience on a current and relevant data science project to tackle real problems faced by our partners. We aim to make this experience as close as possible to a professional experience for the students. Naturally, this project has a pedagogical component, but students can expect to have an engaged and interested partner to support them.

Students will be able to provide their input on what project they are most interested in. However, it is important to note that:

  • many partners submit project proposals, from well-established companies to academic research groups; some you might have heard of, but chances are that you will work on an exciting project with a partner you have not heard of.
  • students do provide their input on what projects they are interested in; however, they do not get to pick the project they will work on or their teammates;
  • the academic team will assign students to projects, and the assignments are final; do not expect reassignments to happen;
  • Do not expect to get a Capstone project in the domain of your past education

In the same way we require that our partners meet a certain level of commitment to the capstone project, we expect our students to:

  • be punctual and responsive.
  • work at least four full-time days per week on the project;
  • communicate productively with their teammates, identify sub-problems that could be worked on individually by team members, and integrate contributions of team members into a final product;
  • document and present their work at UBC (using written, oral, and visual means) at various points throughout the course.
  • optionally (but strongly recommended), present their final product and findings to the capstone partner’s organization.

The capstone project is not optional. Failing the Capstone project will not allow the student to graduate from MDS.