Break Through Tech AI

Are you interested in building machine learning workflows to solve real-world problems? In this 9-week, skills-based summer course, you’ll work with industry-relevant tools to analyze real-world data sets, identifying patterns and relationships as you create robust data science projects. Once you master the data science basics, you’ll move on to using several common machine learning tools to approach real-world business problems, build your own ML models, train, and implement these in the most effective way. Upon completion of the course, students in good academic standing will receive a certificate from eCornell.

During this part of the program (June-August 2024), you should expect to spend about 10 hours per week completing asynchronous, online modules and 3 hours per week participating in synchronous lab sessions. Labs will take place in-person at your host institution for the Boston and LA programs, and via Zoom for the Virtual program.

What you’ll do:

• Articulate the complete data science life cycle end-to-end
• Build a dataset that is suitable for ML applications and understanding your data through exploratory analysis
• Learn how to use industry-relevant ML tools and libraries
• Learn core ML algorithms and develop intuition on trade-offs between different algorithmic choices
• Select ML model evaluation metrics, hyper-parameters for testing, and run model selection to choose the best model amongst candidates
• Learn more advanced ML models and navigate design decisions and constraints to perform agile model development
• Investigate how deep learning can be used in ML and train and adapt neural networks to take advantage of different types of data
• Understand the responsibility of ML engineers to improve the fairness and accountability of ML models

During the Fall 2024 and Spring 2025 semesters, you’ll be invited to join AI Studio where you’ll work in teams to tackle business challenges from leading companies. Our industry partners include a mix of leading companies and organizations working in different industries at the forefront of ML and AI, including Accenture, American Express, Google, JP Morgan Chase, Pfizer, and more.

Based on your unique skills and interests, we’ll match you with a relevant project where you will work with large-scale, real-world datasets to train, test, and evaluate machine learning models to make predictions. Guided by academic and industry advisors, you’ll present your solutions to people experts in the field. All projects will result in technical artifacts that you can add to your portfolio that will serve as a “credential” to show future employers what you can do.

During this part of the program, you can expect to spend about 5 hours per week developing your project. You will also be required to attend monthly Saturday Maker Day events (9am-5pm), which occur on-campus at your host institution for Boston and LA programs, and synchronously via Zoom for the Virtual program.

What you’ll do:

• Apply the ML skills that you learned in your summer ML Engineering course
• Identify and dissect real-world business problems with real-world data and evaluate the ways that they can be addressed using ML and AI
• Collaborate in small teams to develop, test, and iterate on solutions to business problems using ML and AI
• Synthesize and convincingly present your solutions to industry experts
• Add artifacts to your portfolio demonstrating your capabilities and experience

Getting your first job in machine learning and AI takes more than raw technical capability. To support your professional goals, you will work closely with an industry mentor in a small-group to engage in real-world case studies, skill-building simulations, and receive personalized feedback. Your mentor, a data science, ML, or AI professional, will be by your side as you cultivate your authentic leadership and social capital and ensure that you are on track to land a summer internship and full-time employment.

Additionally, you will receive access to our career development resources and career coaching and placement support from Break Through Tech to prepare your portfolio, apply for internships, and practice for your interviews.

During this part of the program (August 2024-April 2025), you can expect to spend about 1 hour per week completing online skill-building workshops as well as one 90 minute synchronous small-group meeting (virtual for all programs) with your mentor each month.

What you’ll do:

• Learn about technical roles within data science, ML, and AI domains and their requirements
• Develop job search methodologies to identify, evaluate, and apply for summer internships or full-time roles
• Create and revise your professional portfolio, including your resume, LinkedIn profile, GitHub profile, and more
• Prepare and practice for coding and ML interviews
• Grow your professional network within the AI/ML field
• Prepare to get the most out of your internship experience