This page contains the lesson plan for DS 121 lectures. It is intended to form the course syllabus, together with the policies listed at https://piazza.com/bu/spring2022/ds121/info

The schedule will be continually updated as new textbook reading, video viewing, and homework assignments are posted.

All lecture notes are available in a Google drive folder. Each lecture video has a different link (included in the table below); the passcode is always ds121@BU

Part 1: The algebra and geometry of data

Week	Topic and lecture materials	Reading / viewing	Homework
1	Linearity [Lecture 1 video]	Aggarwal section 1.1-1.2 Deisenroth-Faisal-Ong section 2.1 3Blue1Brown video 1 and video 2	HW 1 assigned
2	Vector spaces [Lecture 2 video] [Lecture 3 video]	Aggarwal sections 1.3-1.4 [Optional] Deisenroth-Faisal-Ong chapter 2 3Blue1Brown video 3, video 4, and video 5	HW 1 due 1/30 HW 2 assigned
3	Matrices and linear transformations [Lecture 4 video] [Lecture 5 video]	Aggarwal sections 2.1-2.3	HW 2 due 2/4 HW 3 assigned
4	LU decomposition [Lecture 6 video] [Lecture 7 video]	Aggarwal sections 2.4-2.5 3Blue1Brown video 6, video 7, and video 8	HW 3 due 2/11
5	Bases and subspaces [Lecture 8 video]	Review Aggarwal sections 1.1-2.5 for the test	TEST 1 on 2/17 (covers weeks 1-4)
6	Geometry of matrices and vectors (note: no class on Tuesday 2/22) [Lecture 9 video]	Aggarwal sections 2.4 and 2.6 Boyd-Vandenberghe chapter 3	HW 4 assigned
7	QR Decomposition, Eigenvalues and eigenvectors [Lecture 10 video] [Lecture 11 video]	Aggarwal sections 2.6-2.7.2 and 3.1-3.2 3Blue1Brown video 13 and video 14	HW 5 assigned
	(spring break)

Part 2: Computational linear algebra

Week	Topic	Reading	Homework
8	Least squares and regression [Lecture 12 video] [Lecture 13 video]	Boyd-Vandenberghe chapter 12	HW 4 due on 3/14 HW 5 due on 3/18 HW 6 assigned
9	Diagonalization and Cholesky decomposition [Lecture 14 video] [Lecture 15 video]	Aggarwal section 3.3	HW 6 due on 3/25
10	Markov chains and PageRank [Lecture 16 video] [Lecture 17 video]	Aggarwal sections 10.1-10.3 and 10.6	TEST 2 on 3/29 (covers weeks 5-8)
11	Singular value decomposition [Lecture 18 video]	Aggarwal sections 7.1-7.2	HW 7 assigned
12	Principal component analysis [Lecture 19 video] [Lecture 20 video]	Aggarwal sections 7.3-7.4	HW 7 due on 4/11 HW 8 assigned
13	Unstructured clustering [Lecture 21 video] [Lecture 22 video]	Aggarwal section 8.1-8.2 Boyd-Vandenberghe chapter 4	HW 8 due on 4/22 Project plan due on 4/22
14	Structured classification [Lecture 23 - no video, sorry] [Lecture 24 video]	Aggarwal section 4.8 [Optional] Boyd-Vandenberghe chapter 14	[none, work on the project]
15	Class presentations + course recap (note: no class on Thursday 5/5) [Lecture 25 - no video, just look at the lecture notes for review]	[None]	PROJECT due 5/2
			FINAL EXAM on Tues 5/10 at 12-2pm (emphasis on week 9 onward)