Welcome to DAT101x: Data Science Orientation. We're very excited to have you join our curriculum for data science, and we hope you have an enriching and engaging learning experience. This course is the first in a series of courses that you must take in order to complete the Microsoft Professional Program for Data Science, and it's designed to help you learn some basic skills and prepare for the rest of the courses.

To get started, open the Course page and view the topics in the Introduction section, which will help you get set up for the practical labs. We welcome your feedback, so if something is confusing or doesn't work the way you expect, let us know and we'll do our best to address it. Please use the Discussion page to introduce yourself and let us know how you're doing.

The course will take an estimated 4-6 hours to complete, including lecture, further reading, hands-on labs, and assessments. You have until the course end date listed in the Important Dates section to complete the course. Note that the course is scheduled to end at 00:00 UTC, which is the start of the day in the UTC (or GMT) timezone. You can find out when this is in your local timezone at http://www.worldtimeserver.com/convert_time_in_UTC.aspx.

The course is self-paced, so while staff will periodically check the discussion forums, you are expected to work through the materials and submit the graded assignments at your own pace. With so many students taking the course over a long period of time, it will be impossible for staff to answer every question individually; so please use the discussion forums to share questions and comments with your fellow students - the chances are, someone else taking the course will have encountered and resolved the issue you are having!

The assessments in this course are graded. You must achieve a grade of 70% or higher to pass this course

Again, welcome and thanks for taking this course from Microsoft.