The following is a list of online courses and other resources that might be useful preparation for the UBC MDS program. Completion of these courses does not replace the official program prerequisites. Rather, this page is mainly intended for entering students who may wish to reinforce their preparation before the program starts.
Disclaimer: We have not vetted these courses ourselves but rather selected them based on their descriptions seeming appropriate. If you have feedback about them, please let us know.
Python
- Python Data Science Handbook
- Practical Python Programming
- Programming for Everybody (Getting Started with Python), from U. Michigan (Coursera)
- Programming Foundations with Python, Udacity
- Python Programming: A Concise Introduction, from Wesleyan U. (Coursera)
- Introduction to Data Science in Python, from U. Michigan (Coursera)
- Principles of Computing (Part 1), from Rice U. (Coursera)
- Foundations of Python Programming (Runestone)
- Codecademy Learn Python 3 (paid content but they have a free trial)
R
- R for Data Science
- R Programming, from Johns Hopkins U. (Courera)
- Codecademy Learn R
Statistics and Probability
- Fat Chance: Probability from the Ground Up, from Harvard U. (edX)
- Introduction to Probability and Data with R, from Duke U. (Coursera)
- Basic Statistics, from University of Amsterdam (Coursera)
Calculus
- Essence of calculus (YouTube series)
- Calculus One, from The Ohio State University (Coursera)
- Calculus: Single Variable, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 from U. Pennsylvania (Coursera)
- Calculus 1, Differentiation and Integration from MIT (edX)
Linear algebra
- Essence of linear algebra (YouTube series)
- Immersive linear algebra, interactive e-book
- Introduction to Linear Models and Matrix Algebra with R, from Harvard U. (edX)
- Linear Algebra Refresher Course with Python (Udacity).
- Applications of Linear Algebra Part 1, from Davidson College (edX)
General
- Data Analysis for the Life Sciences by Rafael A Irizarry and Michael I Love (has a suggested price but can be accessed for $0)
- A variety of free O’Reilly Ebooks on data science
- A list of data science textbooks, curated by an MDS alum, is available here.
- Dataquest
- Data Gymnasia from Brown University