C-HACK: A Data Science Tutorial and Hackathon for Undergraduate Students in Chemical Engineering

Abstract

We present a two-week active learning chemical engineering hackathon event specifically designed to teach undergraduate chemical engineering students of any skill level data science through Python and directly apply this knowledge to a real problem provided by industry. The event is free and optional to the students. We use self-evaluation surveys to measure improvements in both data science knowledge and team soft skills, finding that participants report a substantial increase in self-confidence with Python, a popular coding language with support for data science tools. The reported improvement is found to be statistically significant, to a greater extent for women who have traditionally been undersupported in computing.