Utrecht University

This course focuses on the applications of machine learning algorithms to real-world questions. The overall aim is to provide theories, techniques, tools, and practical experience for applying machine learning to tackle data science problems. The course lectures cover five parts: essential concepts and techniques of machine learning, classification, regression, and clustering; application - outlier detection; application - predictive process mining; application - natural language processing; and application - reinforcement learning. For each of the four application areas, students work in a team to conduct an assignment that applies machine learning algorithms to a real-world dataset.

This course studies utopian and speculative literature as narrative tools to imagine the future. Students learn that these utopian texts reflect a historical setting and mind set. The course studies the function and meaning of utopian texts at two turning points in history: the age of colonialism and the scientific revolution (sixteenth through eighteenth century) and the social-economic tensions and changes in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Central in these two periods is the focus on the interplay between the European and non-European visions on possible futures. In the early modern period, utopian writers and thinkers have to adapt to a broader geographical (The New World) and philosophical (a New World view) perspective. They have to deal with their role as colonizers (cultural superiority vs. cultural relativism) and scientists (positivism vs. skepticism). In the second period, utopian writing itself is becoming a global endeavor, and often takes the shape of a literary dialogue between former colonizing and colonized countries. In both periods the role of utopias and dystopias in social and political constellations is addressed. Students consider how literature intervenes in conflicts and debates on science, religion, and politics; how utopian optimism or irony can develop into pessimism and (dystopian) skepticism. 

This course examines the basic knowledge and skills needed to give an academic presentation and to interact with others in an English-language classroom. It also covers how to modify the pronunciation of English in order to be better understood by both native and non-native speakers of English; and how to recognize and understand a number of well-known native and non-native accents of English.