STA 35B course webpage: Statistical Data Science 2
Spring 2026
Instructor: Akira Horiguchi (ahoriguchi@ucdavis.edu)
- If emailing me or the TA, include [STA 35B Spring 2026] in the subject line.
- Lectures: Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, 3:10 PM - 4:00 PM, (OLSON 205)
- Office hour: Mondays, 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM (Physical and Data Sciences Building 0003 – ignore the scary signs, Google Map Campus Map)
TA: Santosh Kandel (skandel@ucdavis.edu)
- Discussion: Thursdays, 5:10 PM - 6:00 PM, (TLC 2212)
- Office hour: Thursdays, 3:30 PM - 4:30 PM, (MSB 1117)
Syllabus: here
Piazza: see Canvas
Textbooks: There will be two textbooks used for the course, both of which are freely available online.
- [R4DS2] Hadley Wickham, Mine Çetinkaya-Rundel, Garrett Grolemund (2023). R for Data Science, 2nd edition.
- [IMS2] Mine Cetinkaya-Rundel, Johanna Hardin (2024). Introduction to Modern Statistics, 2nd edition.
- This textbook and its supplements, including slides, labs, and interactive tutorials, may be downloaded for free here.
Helpful (Optional) Links all through UC Davis
Getting started with R
All resources here are freely available online.
- [~ 2 hours]
- [~ 10 hours] Basics with either textbook with exercises or online course
- Harvard University published the R version of its famous CS50 Intro Programming course
- Textbook (2023): R 4 Data Science 2nd edition (provides workflows, has exercises with some solutions elsewhere online)
- Textbook (2026): Deep R Programming (has exercises, the chapters in the "DEEP" section)
- [~ TBD hours] Then practice by working with data, e.g., try Kaggle competition or class project.
- A more advanced book, like
- Textbook (2019) Advanced R 2nd edition (has quizzes and exercises)
- The later chapters of the DeepR book
Misc: nice reference books
- Book: R inferno (A book about trouble spots, oddities, traps, glitches in R.)
- Textbook (2019): R Cookbook (a cookbook, so it's organized by "how do I do X common task and why does that work")
Class Schedule
The exam and homework dates are set, but the lecture topics are subject to change.
| Wk | Day | Topics | Slides | References | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mar 30 (M) | Intro, review of R / dplyr | 01 | R4DS2 Ch3 | |
| Apr 1 (W) | dplyr, tidy data | 02 | R4DS2 Ch3 | HW 1 release | |
| Apr 2 (R) | Discussion | ||||
| Apr 3 (F) | Tidy data | R4DS2 Ch5 | |||
| 2 | Apr 6 (M) | Transformations of logicals | 03 | R4DS2 Ch12 | |
| Apr 8 (W) | Transformations of numbers | 04 | R4DS2 Ch13 | HW 1 due 11pm HW 2 release | |
| Apr 9 (R) | Discussion | ||||
| Apr 10 (F) | Transformations of strings | 05 | R4DS2 Ch14 | ||
| 3 | Apr 13 (M) | Transformations of strings | R4DS2 Ch14 | ||
| Apr 15 (W) | Regular expressions | 06 | R4DS2 Ch15 | HW 3 release | |
| Apr 16 (R) | Discussion | ||||
| Apr 17 (F) | Dates and Times | 07 | R4DS2 Ch17 | HW 2 due 11pm | |
| 4 | Apr 20 (M) | Joins | 08 | R4DS2 Ch19 | |
| Apr 22 (W) | Functions 1 (read 2 on your own) | 09 | R4DS2 Ch25 | ||
| Apr 23 (R) | Discussion | HW 3 due 11pm | |||
| Apr 24 (F) | Virtual office hour | ||||
| 5 | Apr 27 (M) | Midterm exam 1 | HW 4 release | ||
| Apr 29 (W) | Visualization 1 | 10 | R4DS2 Ch9-11 | ||
| Apr 30 (R) | Discussion | ||||
| May 1 (F) | Visualization 2 | R4DS2 Ch9-11 | |||
| 6 | May 4 (M) | Foundations - randomization | 11 | IMS2 Ch11 | HW 4 due 11pm HW 5 release |
| May 6 (W) | Foundations - bootstrapping | 12 | IMS2 Ch12 | ||
| May 7 (R) | Discussion | ||||
| May 8 (F) | Foundations - mathematical models | 13 | IMS2 Ch13 | ||
| 7 | May 11 (M) | Foundations - decision errors | 14 | IMS2 Ch14 | HW 6 release |
| May 13 (W) | Inference for a single proportion | IMS2 Ch16 | HW 5 due 11pm | ||
| May 14 (R) | Discussion | ||||
| May 15 (F) | Inference for comparing 2 proportions | IMS2 Ch17 | |||
| 8 | May 18 (M) | Inference for two-way tables | IMS2 Ch18 | HW 6 due 11pm HW 7 release | |
| May 20 (W) | Inference for a single mean | IMS2 Ch19 | |||
| May 21 (R) | Discussion | ||||
| May 22 (F) | Inference for comparing 2 means | IMS2 Ch20 | |||
| 9 | May 25 (M) | Memorial Day, no class | |||
| May 27 (W) | Midterm exam 2 | ||||
| May 28 (R) | Discussion cancelled | ||||
| May 29 (F) | Inference for comparing 2+ means | IMS2 Ch20-22 | |||
| 10 | Jun 1 (M) | Inference for comparing 2+ means | IMS2 Ch20-22 | ||
| Jun 3 (W) | Inference for comparing 2+ means | IMS2 Ch20-22 | HW 7 due 11pm | ||
| Jun 4 (R) | Discussion | ||||
| 11 | Jun 10 (W) | Final exam: 8:00 AM - 10:00 AM |