Elements of Machine Learning

Dear all,

The summer term started a few weeks ago, so EML is quickly becoming a fleeting memory. Before we forget all about it, I’d like to share a few statistics and thoughts.

Overall, more than 466 students registered on CMS, 287 handed in at least one assignment, and 260 at least two. Each of these is significantly higher than in previous years.

Out of those 260 students, 239 (92%) qualified to take the exam. That’s the highest percentage we’ve ever had, and we’re quite proud of this. It not only shows that you did your best but also that our tutors did a great job. From your feedback, we also heard that you appreciated the exercise sheets a lot too.

Out of those 239 qualified students, 192 (80%) took at least one of the two exams. I’m honestly a bit puzzled why those other 20% decided not to take the exam, especially because…

Out of the 192 students who did take at least one exam, a whopping 154 (80%) passed! This makes us very happy, because while the exam was challenging it was fair, and so was the passing threshold (25 out of 50 points). The average grade was a 3.3, and the average passing grade was a 2.9. Over all the study subjects, the DSAI students had the highest passing rate (92%) but the best average passing grade was for the Computer Science students (2.7). Go CS!

More interestingly, some feedback hinted at EML being hard for Bachelor students. Let’s look at the numbers…
92 Masters students took an exam, out of whom 66 passed (72%), with an average passing grade of 2.90.
94 Bachelor students took an exam, out of whom 83 passed (88%), with an average passing grade of 2.89.
Also, out of the 20 students who scored 1.7 or better, 10 were Bachelor’s, 8 were Master’s, and 2 were Grad School students.
Go Bachelors! 

Krikamol and I hope you had as much fun taking the course as we did lecturing it. EML is a lot of work though – for you, but also us. We could not have done it without our excellent head TAs, TAs, and Tutors. This is the right moment to express our deep gratitude to Osman, Joscha, many thanks Sarah, Sascha, Nils, Anuragh, and many thanks Jawad, Christina, Omer, Muhammad, Ali, Josephine, Ahmed, and Filippo! But, we could also not have done it without you, so, also a heartfelt thank you to all of you!

We wish you all the best with your studies, and until we meet again.

Best regards,
Jilles Vreeken and Krikamol Muandet