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Bootcamp Schedule - Fall 2026

🕐 Time
Every session: 6:30-8:30 PM E(D)T
📡 Format
OMSA: live; VMM: recordings via Piazza
🎬 Recordings
Posted within 24-48 hrs on Bootcamp Piazza thread
Note
Student Review = watch on your own, not covered live
📌 Schedule Updates
Updates will be announced via Piazza and posted on the pinned bootcamp thread (although we don't anticipate many updates)
# Topic Date Notebooks
1 Introduction + AI Session Tue, Aug 25 Course & Bootcamp Intro + LLMs for Learning
2 Dictionaries Tue, Sep 1 Dictionaries 1 + Dictionaries 2
3 List & Dict Comprehensions Wed, Sep 2 Comprehensions + Helper Functions
4 Math as Code Thu, Sep 3 Math as Code + Zip & Enumerate
5 Nested Data Tue, Sep 8 Nested Data + Exercises
6 Coffee Table - 1/3 Wed, Sep 9 -
7 Coffee Table - 2/3 Thu, Sep 10 -
8 Coffee Table - 3/3 Mon, Sep 14 -
9 Regex Tue, Sep 15 Intro + MPE 1 + MPE 2
10 Pandas DF + Functions Mon, Sep 21 Indexing + Functions
11 Pandas GroupBy + Apply Tue, Sep 22 GroupBy Agg + Grouping
12 MT1 Prep + Walkthrough 1/3 Tue, Sep 29 -
13 MT1 Walkthrough 2/3 Wed, Sep 30 -
14 MT1 Walkthrough 3/3 Thu, Oct 1 -
MT1 Oct 2 - Oct 7 -
15 Midterm 1 Review Thu, Oct 8 -
16 SQL: Aggregate, NULLs, DB Discovery Mon, Oct 12 Exam Format + DB Discovery + Aggregate + NULLs
17 SQL: Strings, Dates, CASE Tue, Oct 13 Strings + CASE + Dates + Exercise
18 SQL: Subqueries, CTEs, Temp Tables Wed, Oct 14 Overview + Subqueries + CTEs + Temp Tables
19 SQL: Order of Ops, Window Fcts Thu, Oct 15 Uni DB + Window Fcts + Aggregations
20 NumPy Arrays Tue, Oct 20 Array Shapes + Boolean Mask + Argsort
21 NumPy Matrix Multiplication + Broadcasting Thu, Oct 22 Matrix Multiplication + Broadcasting
22 MT2 Prep + Walkthrough 1/3 Tue, Oct 27 -
23 MT2 Walkthrough 2/3 Thu, Oct 29 -
24 MT2 Walkthrough 3/3 Tue, Nov 3 -
MT2 Nov 6 - Nov 11 -
25 Midterm 2 Review Thu, Nov 12 -
26 CSE 6040 in the Real World OMSA Only Tue, Nov 17 -
27 FX Prep + Walkthrough 1/3 Tue, Nov 24 -
28 FX Walkthrough 2/3 Tue, Dec 1 -
29 FX Walkthrough 3/3 Tue, Dec 8 -
Final Exam Dec 11 - Dec 16 -
30 Final Exam Review Thu, Dec 17 -

Detailed Session Notes

Introduction

  1. Course Introduction by Professor Vuduc
  2. Navigating the course website, Piazza, and important Canvas/edX module pages
  3. Common Student Questions on Exams and Homework Notebooks
  4. Introduction of Data Analysis in Python Bootcamp Series
  5. Presentation Slides - Click "More Pages" at the bottom to see all 14 slides.
  6. LLMs & Learning

Student Review: Bootcamp Ground Rules

Watch before the next session - not covered live

Sessions to Prepare for MT1

Dictionaries

  1. Dictionaries Part 1
  2. Dictionaries Part 2

Practice:

List and Dictionary Comprehensions

  1. List & Dictionary Comprehensions
  2. Helper Functions

Practice:

  • Vocareum: Module 0, Topic 1, Problems 3 and 9

Math as Code

  1. Math as Code
  2. Zip and Enumerate

Practice:

Nested Data

  1. Nested Data
  2. Nested Data Exercises

Practice:

Student Review: Lambda Functions & Sorting

Watch on your own - not covered live

  1. Lambda Functions (17 min) | Notebook
  2. Sorting (51 min) | Notebook

Practice:

Student Review: Problem Solving Method

Watch on your own - not covered live

  1. Method Introduction (45 min) | Notebook | PDF
  2. TA Walkthrough: MPE 3 (7 min) | Notebook
  3. TA Walkthrough: MPE 6 (28 min) | Notebook
  4. TA Walkthrough: MPE 7 (20 min) | Notebook
  5. TA Walkthrough: MPE 9 (11 min) | Notebook

Practice:

Coffee Problems

The next 5 sessions walk through Vocareum's "Coffee Problems (Set 1)" - notebooks that mimic the first midterm exam format.

Part Focus Exercises Exam Equivalent
Part 0 Data Discovery & Cleaning 3 1-point exercises
Part 1 Data Cleaning 2 Harder 1-point / easier 2-point
Part 2 Basic Analysis 2 2-point exercises
Part 3 Advanced Analysis 4 3-point exercises

Source: Adapted from What Makes an Album the Greatest of All Time

Access: Canvas (OMSA) or edX (VMM) → Module 0 → "Bootcamp Notebooks for Exam Practice"

Coffee Table Walkthrough 1/5

Session 1 of 5 - Part 0, exercises 0/1/2

Coffee Table Walkthrough 2/5

Session 2 of 5 - Part 1, exercises 0/1

Coffee Table Walkthrough 3/5

Session 3 of 5 - Part 2, exercises 0/1

Coffee Table Walkthrough 4/5

Session 4 of 5 - Part 3, exercises 0/1

Coffee Table Walkthrough 5/5

Session 5 of 5 - Part 3, exercises 2/3

Regex String Manipulation

  1. Regex Intro
  2. Regex MPE 1
  3. Regex MPE 2

Practice:

PMT1-SP26

  1. MT1 Prep Slides
  2. TA Walkthrough of Spring 2026 Midterm 1

PMT1-FA25

  1. MT1 Prep Slides
  2. TA Walkthrough of Fall 2025 Midterm 1

PMT1-SP25

  1. TA Walkthrough of Spring 2025 Midterm 1
  2. Exam Prep Q&A - PDF in Bootcamp Piazza thread

Midterm 1 Review

  1. Prof Vuduc exam results review
  2. TA Walkthrough of exam solution

Sessions to Prepare for Midterm 2

Basic Pandas Functions

  1. Selection with .loc[] and .iloc[]
  2. Index, concat, merge

Practice:

GroupBy and Apply

  1. GroupBy Aggregation
  2. GroupBy with Apply, Boolean Masks

Student Review: SQL

Watch on your own - not covered live

From the Spring 2025 MT2 Post-Exam Review Session. These show the paradigm for SQL exercises in this class: write the query as a string, use provided helper functions to connect to the database, and return results as a pandas DataFrame.

  1. SQL Intro (3 min) - Helper functions for table/column/foreign key info
  2. Exercises 1-3 (23 min) - UNION ALL, GROUP BY, COALESCE, LEFT JOIN, ORDER BY
  3. Exercises 4-5 (28 min) - Subquery, LEFT JOIN, MAX CASE

Additional Resources:

SQL: Aggregate, NULLs, DB Info Discovery

  1. Exam Format
  2. DB Info Discovery
  3. Aggregate Functions
  4. NULLs

SQL: Strings, Dates, CASE

  1. String Functions
  2. CASE Functions
  3. Dates
  4. String & CASE Exercise

SQL: Subqueries, CTEs, Temp Tables

  1. Overview
  2. Subqueries
  3. CTEs
  4. Temp Tables

SQL: Order of Operations, Window Functions

  1. Intro to University DB
  2. Window Functions (RANK/DENSE_RANK)
  3. Window Functions (SUM/LEAD/LAG)

Student Review: NumPy

Watch on your own — not covered live

NumPy Arrays

  1. Array Shapes
  2. Boolean Masks
  3. Argsort & Sort

Broadcasting & Matrix Multiplication

  1. Matrix Multiplication
  2. Broadcasting

Relies on Linear Algebra principles. For students less confident in Linear Algebra:

  • 3Blue1Brown: Linear Algebra
  • Prof Vuduc's Topic 11 on Canvas and edX: "Supplemental Classroom Video - Numpy Neural Networks, Linear Algebra"

Walkthrough: PMT2-SP26

  1. TA Walkthrough of Spring 2026 Midterm 2
  2. MT2 Exam Prep Topics - PDF in Bootcamp Piazza thread

Walkthrough: PMT2-FA25

  1. TA Walkthrough of Fall 2025 Midterm 2

Walkthrough: PMT2-SP25

  1. TA Walkthrough of Spring 2025 Midterm 2

Midterm 2 Review

  1. Prof Vuduc exam results review
  2. TA Walkthrough of exam solution

Sessions to Prepare for the Final Exam

CSE 6040 in the Real World

OMSA only - Panel discussion with course/program alumni. Details on Piazza.

Walkthrough: PFX-SP26

  1. TA Walkthrough of Spring 2026 Final Exam
  2. Final Exam Prep Topics - PDF in Bootcamp Piazza thread

Walkthrough: PFX-FA25

  1. TA Walkthrough of Fall 2025 Final Exam
  2. Final Exam Prep Topics - PDF in Bootcamp Piazza thread

Walkthrough: PFX-SP25

  1. TA Walkthrough of Spring 2025 Final Exam

Final Exam Review

  1. Prof Vuduc exam results review
  2. TA Walkthrough of exam solution