Being Berlin based, and a cornerstone of the Data Science community, Data Science Retreat has been a pretty regular feature of our coverage. We covered their launch back in April last year, the success of their early batches, and some of the student projects. Jose Quesada, DSR’s founder and director, has an interesting story himself.

Need help asking the right questions?

DSR’s existing offering, a 3 month ‘bootcamp’ style Data Science program, is aimed at providing practical experience and guidance for aspiring data scientists. Students are guided through the course by a host of industry experts acting as mentors, producing portfolio projects in the run up to the climax – demo day. The key points of the program involve learning to ask the right questions, and building experience with various aspects of machine learning, with a focus on Python and R languages.

Looking to build scalable data products?

Adding to the Data Science program is a brand new Big Data Engineering program. For candidates looking for guidance on designing data products that scale gracefully (using streams, for example), and getting to grips with Apache Spark, this is for you. Rather than Python and R, this program focuses on Python and Scala. There is a much greater focus on building products and putting algorithms into production.

With a 5% acceptance rate to the course, it is clear there is demand from young professionals looking to add a real qualification to their resume – and with an 86% success rate of finding a career afterward it seems to work!

Their next batch starts on September 16th! Find out more on their website.

(image credit: Jörg Schubert)