Students who want an edge in the professional world might consider applying for Data Science Summer Institute's six-week program in data science. This program from the University of Illinois consists of intensive work in the mathematical foundations, tutorials on advanced data science topics, expert speakers, and collaborative research projects.

Though academic, many of the students' projects are aimed at solving typical and not-so-typical corporate problems. Such as:

- Databases and information integration 
- Machine learning, natural language processing, and information extraction
- Computer vision
- Information retrieval and Web information access
- Knowledge discovery in social and information networks

The program is open to juniors and seniors with a major or minor in computer science. the deadline for applying is Feb.18, 2011.

-- Dino Londis