El Camino College Receives Grant for Data Science Curriculum

El Camino College was recently awarded a grant to support its data science curriculum. The college began offering a data science class in 2021, with support from the data science education program at the University of California, Berkeley. 

El Camino will receive $350,000 from the California Education Learning Lab (Learning Lab), part of an $8 million award across 13 grants. The funding program is designed to incentivize public higher education institutions to embrace data science as an opportunity to build new pathways, modernize majors, attract historically underrepresented students into STEM, and advance both civic and interdisciplinary learning. 

As the only community college named as an award host institution, El Camino will lead the collaboration with UC Berkeley. At El Camino, grant funds will be used to recruit and train faculty to add data science content to their courses, with the eventual goal of expanding data science offerings across campus.  

“Data science is becoming increasingly popular with students, and this collaboration with UC Berkeley allows El Camino to provide innovative curricula and serve as a model for other community colleges,” said Solomon Russell, a computer science professor at El Camino.

Data science uses components of computer science and statistics to create data-based conclusions about questions in the real world. Companies are increasingly using and managing data to meet industry and customer needs. Skilled computer scientists and analysts are in high demand with the exponential growth of data use in virtually all aspects of life.

Beginning this fall, El Camino’s Computer Science Department will offer a data science certificate of achievement. The college’s intro data science course “Foundations of Data Science,” is part of the certificate. The course also prepares students for university programs and is UC and CSU transferable. El Camino College offers two sections of Foundations of Data Science (CSCI 8) for fall 2023, one in person and one where students can choose to attend either in person or online. More information about the class is available online: https://elcodatascience8.carrd.co/. The course does not require any prior coding knowledge. 

El Camino College’s schedule of classes, in both digital and searchable formats, can be viewed online: www.elcamino.edu/admissions/schedule.asp. Students may apply and register online 24 hours per day at www.elcamino.edu. Financial aid is available to qualifying students – go to www.studentaid.gov/ to apply. For more information, view www.elcamino.edu or call toll free 1-866-ELCAMINO.