QuACK
Quantitative analysis and coding knowledge (UC Berkeley, Psychology)
Programming and Data Skills Bootcamp - Summer 2025
Welcome to UC Berkeley Psychology’s Summer Bootcamp!
This hands-on four-session bootcamp will focus on teaching fundamental data skills in R with an emphasis on good data and coding practices. This bootcamp is open to all RAs and post-bacs in the department. Graduate students are also welcome to attend. Importantly, no programming experience or R knowledge is expected or required! Come as you are and learn!
Dates, Time, and Location
Dates: Wednesdays, June 11th, July 2nd, 16th, 23rd
Time: 1-3pm
Location: Berkeley Way West (BWW), Room 1213 (first and fourth sessions) 3101 (second and third sessions) (note the different rooms!)
Sessions include live demos, individual work, and group work, and are interactive and hands-on. For these reasons, we encourage all who can to attend in person in order to get the most out of the bootcamp. That said, we understand that some people are remote this summer, may have time conflicts, or may need to miss a session.
Coordinators
The bootcamp is taught by Sophie Regan and Nina Schoener who are PhD students in the department and are always learning about R themselves! The bootcamp point-person who manages all things logistics is Victoria Keating.
Core Goals
1) Provide hands-on training in fundamental programming and data skills with real data.
2) Build an inclusive, supportive, and positive space for learning and teaching these skills in the community.
3) Help students build confidence in their skills and their ability to continue learning on their own after the bootcamp.
Schedule
Each session will start with a live demo focusing on fundamental data skills. We will then work independently and in groups to apply these skills to real data. Finally, we will finish each session with a group discussion centering around the challenges faced while working with the data and ways to address and overcome them.
| session | topic | practice materials | live demo script & answer key | slides |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| June 11th | Getting started with R | s1_materials | s1_demo-script | s1_slides |
| July 2nd | Data cleaning and wrangling | s2_materials | s2_demo-script | s2_slides |
| July 16th | Data visualization | TBD | TBD | TBD |
| July 23rd | Intro to stats with R | TBD | TBD | TBD |
Materials Guide
We are committed to open science and we make all of our resources and teaching materials freely available for offline learning.
Data: We will be using the same dataset throughout the bootcamp. You can find the data in the session 1 practice materials.
Each week we will post some additional materials:
- Practice Materials: This will include any starter code and prompts for the independent and/or group work. The best way to learn to program is to practice! So if you are participating asynchronously, we encourage you to try the practice to apply the new skills.
- Live Demo Script: Each session will begin with a demo where we introduce some fundemental skills and key concepts that will help you with the practice materials. We will post these after each session. This will also include answer keys for the group activity if applicable.
- Slides: Any slides used will be made available for download after the session.
Participating In-Person
Please download the practice materials before each session. We will be sharing all other materials after the session. See our FAQs for more info on the workshop and what to do if you miss a session.