STA 35C - Statistical Data Science III, Spring 2026

Course Information

Instructor: Dogyoon Song (dgsong [at] ucdavis [dot] edu)

Teaching Assistant: Yanhao Jin (yahjin [at] ucdavis [dot] edu)

Lectures: Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, 1:10 PM – 2:00 PM, Wellman Hall 6

Discussions (Labs) are run by TA

Office hours:

Syllabus: link

Canvas: link

Piazza: link

Textbooks: There is one required textbook, which is available online.

Topics

A tentative list of topics to be covered include:

Course Structure and Evaluation

The students’ performance in this course will be evaluated based on the following:

Tentative Class Schedule

Lecture Day Topics Slides Additional references HW Notes
Mon, Mar 30 Introduction Lecture 1 JWHT, Ch 1 “HW 0”  
Wed, Apr 1 Probability review: basics and conditional probability Lecture 2   Homework 1 posted; due Tue, April 7  
Fri, Apr 3 Probability review: Bayes’ theorem and random variables Lecture 3      
Mon, Apr 6 Statistical learning Lecture 4 JWHT, Ch 2.1    
Wed, Apr 8 Simple linear regression Lecture 5 JWHT, Ch 3.1 Homework 2 posted; due Tue, April 14  
Fri, Apr 10 Multiple linear regression Lecture 6 JWHT, Ch 3.2 & 7.1    
Mon, Apr 13 Qualitative predictors & pitfalls in linear regression Lecture 7 JWHT, Ch 3.3 & 3.5    
Wed, Apr 15 Classification & Logistic regression Lecture 8 JWHT, Ch 4.1-4.3 Homework 3 posted; due Tue, April 21  
Fri, Apr 17 Logistic regression (cont’d) & Classification errors Lecture 9 JWHT, Ch 4.3-4.4    
Mon, Apr 20 Generative models & Linear discriminant analysis Lecture 10 JWHT, Ch 4.4    
Wed, Apr 22 More on generative models + Review for Midterm 1 Lecture 11 JWHT, Ch 4.4-4.5    
Fri, Apr 24 Midterm1 (in-class) Solution      
Mon, Apr 27 The bias-variance tradeoff Lecture 12 JWHT, Ch 2.2    
Wed, Apr 29 Cross-validation Lecture 13 JWHT, Ch 5.1 Homework 4 posted; due Tue, May 5  
Fri, May 1 k-fold CV & The bootstrap Lecture 14 JWHT, Ch 5.2    
Mon, May 4 Subset selection Lecture 15 JWHT, Ch 6.1   Remote lecture; see Canvas announcement
Wed, May 6 Regularization Lecture 16 JWHT, Ch 6.2 Homework 5 posted; due Tue, May 12  
Fri, May 8 Regularization (cont’d) & Multiple testing Lecture 17 JWHT, Ch 6.2 & 13.1-13.2    
Mon, May 11 Multiple hypotheses testing Lecture 18 JWHT, Ch 13.2-13.4    
Wed, May 13 Review for Midterm 2 Lecture 19      
Fri, May 15 Midterm2 (in-class) Solution      
Mon, May 18 Basis functions & Regression splines Lecture 20 JWHT, Ch 7.1-7.4    
Wed, May 20 Natural splines + Smoothing splines Lecture 21 JWHT, Ch 7.4-7.5 Homework 6 posted; due Tue, May 26  
Fri, May 22 Principal component analysis Lecture 22 JWHT, Ch 6.3.1 & 12.1-12.2    
Mon, May 25 Memorial day, no class        
Wed, May 27 Principal component analysis (cont’d) Lecture 23 JWHT, Ch 12.2 Homework 7 posted; due Tue, June 2  
Fri, May 29 Clustering: K-means clustering Lecture 24 JWHT, Ch 12.4    
Mon, Jun 1 Clustering: Hierarchical clustering Lecture 25 JWHT, Ch 12.4    
Wed, Jun 3 Review for final exam & Conclusion Lecture 26      
Fri, Jun 5 Final exam (1:00 - 3:00 PM) Solution      

Sample exams from the previous year (Spring 2025):

Additional mock exams for practice: