Cohort Two: What We Changed for the Feb 2026 Data Science & Machine Learning Bootcamp
ProgramsMar 26, 2026 · 6 min read · Updated Aug 10, 2026
Cohort Two: What We Changed for the Feb 2026 Data Science & Machine Learning Bootcamp
Five months after our first cohort, we ran a second Data Science & Machine Learning Bootcamp in February 2026. The core format held — one month, the same seven-stage ML workflow — but the curriculum itself changed in specific, deliberate ways.
In February 2026 we ran the second Data Science & Machine Learning Bootcamp, five months after the first cohort closed. The core structure didn't change — one month, the same seven-stage ML workflow, the same hands-on assignment-after-every-lesson format — but the curriculum itself changed in a few specific, deliberate ways, all of them things we learned directly from running the first cohort.
Back for a Second Cohort
Our first Data Science & Machine Learning Bootcamp ran in September 2025. It was built to take a complete beginner from raw data to a deployed model in one month, and it was our first real test of whether that format actually worked. It did — well enough that we came back five months later to run it again, this time with a syllabus shaped by everything we'd seen the first time around.
What Stayed the Same
The same seven-stage ML workflow: collect data, preprocess, split into train/test, choose a model, train, evaluate, deploy.
The same "in action" pattern for the harder topics — a theory lesson followed by a live, hands-on coding walkthrough for data processing, regression, classification, and clustering.
The same hosts, Sharafdin Yusuf and Omar Tood, and the same sponsor, Dugsiiye, keeping every seat free.
The same commitment to openness — every lesson, assignment, and the final project brief published on GitHub under a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
What We Changed
Two changes came directly out of friction we saw in the first cohort, rather than out of any change to the underlying subject matter.
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We added a dedicated "How to Submit Assignments" walkthrough early in the course — a housekeeping problem we hadn't anticipated the first time, solved simply by showing everyone exactly what a submission should look like before the first one was due.
We split the Regression lesson into two parts instead of one dense session, and added a separate revision video on top of it. Regression is where a lot of the underlying math and intuition for everything that follows gets introduced, and cohort one told us it needed more room to breathe.
We added a Clustering revision video for the same reason — one pass wasn't enough for a topic that's conceptually different from everything taught before it.
We tightened the lesson numbering. The same seven-stage workflow now runs across seven core lessons instead of ten, with setup and logistics folded directly into the flow rather than tacked on as separate resource videos.
Still the Same Finish Line
Despite the changes in the middle of the course, the bookends didn't move. The bootcamp still opens with an introduction to machine learning and the shape of the full workflow, and it still closes with a deployment lesson and a final project that asks participants to run the entire pipeline themselves, unassisted, from a fresh dataset to a working, deployed result.
Open and Free, Again
As with the first cohort, Dugsiiye's sponsorship meant every seat was free. The full lesson library — videos, assignments, and the final project — lives in the public feb-ds-ml-bootcamp-2026 repository on GitHub for anyone to follow at their own pace.
Looking Ahead
Two cohorts in, the pattern was clear: demand for this material kept outpacing any single run of the bootcamp. That's what pushed us toward a dedicated Python foundations track for people who needed programming fluency before tackling data science at all, a third and more expansive Data Science & Machine Learning cohort with a much larger curriculum, and eventually a Git & GitHub bootcamp for the collaboration skills every one of these projects depends on. We'll cover each of those in their own posts.
Our Biggest Cohort Yet: Inside the June 2026 Data Science & Machine Learning Bootcamp
In June 2026 we ran our third Data Science & Machine Learning Bootcamp, and it's the biggest curriculum we've built for the program — eight core lessons on the full ML workflow, plus seven bonus sessions covering deep learning, generative AI, ethics, and career paths.
