QAI Summer Course

The application for QAI Summer 2024 is open!

About the QAI Summer Program: The QAI Summer Program is a free, non-credit, second-level applied statistics and data science course intended for students who have completed introductory statistics. The program was originally designed for students participating in summer research and is now open to all Wellesley students who have taken introductory statistics. The program's goal is to introduce advanced data skills while supporting students in their current and future research projects. Topics include statistics fundamentals, such as study design, statistical inference, and tools for handling common complications like missing data; practical data handling skills, including data cleaning and the use of complex data sets; and data communication, such as best practices for visualization. All students will become proficient in the statistical software R, and training in other skills such as mapping, SQL, and GitHub will be available as well. The course is also intended to bring together students from a variety of disciplines whose work involves data. 

• Summer research students in fields related to data can incorporate this program into their RA positions, as a way to prepare for future projects and gain a broad set of data science skills.
• Data science majors and statistics minors sometimes prefer to complete this material during a summer in order to move on to other statistics courses the following year. Students juggling requirements as they aim to study abroad often fall into this category. See below for more detail on how the QAI Program fits into majors/minors.
• Any student who is interested in continuing along the statistics sequence and who has less than full-time commitments during the summer may find that the QAI Program is a way to productively connect with peers, engage intellectually, and gain new skills.
• Students who are waitlisted for QR/STAT 260 sometimes choose the QAI Program as an alternative.
• Earning a QAI Certificate is one of the ways that a student can become eligible to apply for QAI internships.

• The 2024 summer program will run for 8 weeks, from Monday, June 3 through Friday, July 26. The program is fully remote and largely asynchronous - there is no single time when all participants must be available.
• Students completing the QAI Summer Program report that they spend an average of 10 hours/week, with a range of 8 hours to 15 hours. Lectures are delivered via asynchronous, recorded videos. Each student will be assigned to two 90-min labs at two different weekly times. There will be labs scheduled at a variety of times. We do our best to coordinate lab times to accommodate students' schedules and time zones and appreciate flexibility from students to make the scheduling succeed. Between labs, students complete online modules, work on quizzes and problem sets, and join optional office hours. 
• All students will need access to the internet and a computer (an iPad or Chromebook is not sufficient). Please let us know on your application if accessing this technology is an obstacle.

Balancing with Other Commitments: Students who are participating in the summer research program or any other internship or job, at Wellesley or beyond, should include their advisor or supervisor’s email address in the application. Please discuss the QAI program with your advisor/supervisor before applying. This person must agree that the student can dedicate 10 hours each week to the QAI program. In our experience, the summer does not go well if students attempt to complete the QAI program on top of a full-time position, unless they are released from that work for 10 hours each week. Ten hours is more time than it sounds like. If you are working 35 hours/week, ten hours is 28% of your time! Students with part-time jobs may not need a supervisor’s sign-off to apply for the QAI program. Please explain your summer situation in your application.

Eligibility: The programs are open to all Wellesley students, including spring graduates: the Classes of 2024, 2025, 2026, or 2027. The prerequisite is any introductory statistics course at Wellesley: STAT 160, STAT 218, ECON 103/SOC 190, PSYC 105 (previously called 205), BISC 198, or POL 299. AP Statistics is not a sufficient prerequisite. If you have taken QR/STAT 260, you should not apply for the QAI Summer Program. However, students who have already taken other courses that rely on intro stats, such as STAT 318 or ECON 203, are encouraged to apply.

Counting a QAI Certificate toward the data science major or statistics minor: Students often have questions about how the QAI Program relates to their data science or statistics sequences. No one who earns a QAI Certificate can also take QR/STAT 260.

• Statistics minors who earn QAI Certificates can replace their statistical modeling course (usually a choice between STAT 260 and STAT 318) by any STAT elective at the 200- or 300-level. They might also choose to take STAT 318.
• Students who earn QAI Certificates and are pursuing individual majors in data science (approved by spring 2023) can replace their statistical modeling course (usually a choice between STAT 260 and STAT 318) by any STAT elective at the 200- or 300-level. They might also choose to take STAT 318.
• Students who earn QAI Certificates and are pursuing a regular (not individual) major in data science (declaring in workday after spring 2023) can replace the STAT 260 requirement by any STAT elective at the 200- or 300-level.

 

Will the QAI Summer Program appear on my transcript? No. Instead, students can list this experience on their resumes, as a way to signal statistical and data science skills.

 

Will I earn academic credit for participating in the QAI program? No.

 

How much does it cost? Nothing.

 

Will I earn a grade? Because the program is non-credit, you will not earn a grade that shows up on a transcript. However, we will grade your work and keep track of those scores. We will calculate what your overall final grade would have been at the end of the summer, if the course had been for credit. Students earning the equivalent of a C or higher in the QAI Summer Program will earn a QAI Certificate. Professor Pattanayak may refer to these unofficial grades if you ask for a letter of recommendation or apply for a QAI internship in the future.

 

After you have earned a QAI Certificate, you can move on to courses that require QR/STAT 260 as a prerequisite, such as STAT 309 or STAT 318. We usually do not have enough seats to accommodate everyone who wants to take QR/STAT 260 (it is offered annually in the fall), so learning this material in the summer is a way to make sure you do not have to wait to move forward with statistics.

 

The Summer Program uses exactly the same lecture videos and online modules that were used in a remote, pandemic version of QR/STAT 260. The assignments are similar. However, the summer program syllabus differs from the 260 syllabus in that there are no midterm or final exams. The summer course also has no final project, as many participants are already working on summer research projects alongside the QAI program. QR/STAT 260 includes a project. In the summer, there are no synchronous all-class meetings, and labs are run by teaching assistants. So, students who do not take advantage of office hours will have much less live contact with Professor Pattanayak than they would if enrolled in 260. That said, all are invited and encouraged to attend Prof. P.'s office hours frequently.

 

No, the prerequisite is a strict one. The reason is that the QAI Summer Program is equivalent to QR/STAT 260, which is a second-level statistics course. A student who participated in the QAI Summer Program without first taking intro stats would then find themself in an awkward position in our statistics sequence: too advanced to take intro stats, but no longer eligible for QR/STAT 260, and without enough experience to take a more advanced course. In addition, the synchronous parts of the summer course rely on small group activities, and these activities are only successful if every student has met the prerequisite and can fully participate.

The only exception is if a student has formally transferred credit from another college or university for a course approved by the registrar as equivalent to one of Wellesley's intro stats courses.