Statistics 154/254: Statistical Machine Learning
UC Berkeley, Fall 2025
Instructors
Instructor: Ryan Giordano
Office: 389 Evans Hall
Office hours: Mon 9:40am-10:30am, Thu 3pm-4pm in Evans 389
rgiordano@berkeley.edu
pronouns: He / him
GSI: Erez Buchweitz
Office: Evans Hall
Office hours: Mon 4:10pm-5pm, Fri 1:05pm-1:50pm in Evans 428
erez.buchweitz@berkeley.edu
pronouns: He / him
According to the official schedule, the final exam will be Tuesday, Dec 16th, 03:00 pm - 06:00 pm, in Valley Life Sciences 2060.
This website will contain lecture materials and assignments. Day-to-day announcements and discussion will be found in ED. (See links above.)
Materials
The course will be based largely on a subset of the following texts:
- Patterns, predictions, and actions: A story about machine learning Hardt, Recht
- ESL: The Elements of Statistical Learning Hastie, Tibshirani, Friedman
- ISL: An Introduction to Statistical Learning James, Witten, Hastie, Tibshirani
Leture notes and additional reading will supplement these texts as necessary.
Some other good sources of reading material are:
- Understanding Machine Learning: From Theory to Algorithms Shalev-Shwartz, Ben-David
- Probabilistic Machine Learning: An Introduction Murphy
Schedule
Lectures will be held Aug 28th 2025 – Dec 11th 2025 from 9:30am – 11 am in Valley Life Sciences 2060.
Labs will be held on Fridays from 11:00am – 1:00pm and 3:00pm – 5:00pm in Evans 340.
Here is a link to the official course catalog entry.
The tentative week-by-week course calendar is as follows. The following schedule is aspirational and subject to change as we go.
| Date | Day | Note | Topic | Assignment |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aug 28 | Thursday | Lecture | Course policies | |
| Aug 29 | Friday | Lab | Python review | |
| Sep 2 | Tuesday | Lecture | Unit 1: Regression | |
| Sep 4 | Thursday | Lecture | HW 0 | |
| Sep 5 | Friday | Lab | Challenge 1 | |
| Sep 9 | Tuesday | Lecture | ||
| Sep 11 | Thursday | Lecture | Quiz 0 | |
| Sep 12 | Friday | Lab | Challenge 1 | |
| Sep 16 | Tuesday | Lecture | Unit 2: Classification | |
| Sep 17 | Wednesday | Add / drop deadline | ||
| Sep 18 | Thursday | Lecture | HW 1 | |
| Sep 19 | Friday | Lab | Challenge 1 | |
| Sep 23 | Tuesday | Lecture | ||
| Sep 25 | Thursday | Lecture | Quiz 1 | |
| Sep 26 | Friday | Lab | Lab Canceled | |
| Sep 30 | Tuesday | Lecture | Unit 3: Risk and Complexity | |
| Oct 2 | Thursday | Lecture | HW 2 | |
| Oct 3 | Friday | Lab | Reading 1 | |
| Oct 7 | Tuesday | Recorded or guest lecture | ||
| Oct 9 | Thursday | Lecture | Quiz 2 | |
| Oct 10 | Friday | Lab | Challenge 2 | |
| Oct 14 | Tuesday | Lecture | ||
| Oct 16 | Thursday | Lecture | ||
| Oct 17 | Friday | Lab | Challenge 2 | |
| Oct 21 | Tuesday | Lecture | ||
| Oct 23 | Thursday | Lecture | Unit 4: Trees and weak learners | |
| Oct 24 | Friday | Lab | Challenge 2 | |
| Oct 28 | Tuesday | Lecture | ||
| Oct 30 | Thursday | Lecture | HW 3 | |
| Oct 31 | Friday | Lab | Reading 2 | |
| Nov 4 | Tuesday | Lecture | ||
| Nov 6 | Thursday | Recorded or guest lecture | Quiz 3 | |
| Nov 7 | Friday | Lab | Challenge 3 | |
| Nov 11 | Tuesday | Administrative holiday | ||
| Nov 13 | Thursday | Lecture | Unit 5: Kernels | HW 4 |
| Nov 14 | Friday | Lab | Challenge 3 | |
| Nov 18 | Tuesday | Lecture | ||
| Nov 20 | Thursday | Lecture | Quiz 4 | |
| Nov 21 | Friday | Lab | Challenge 3 | |
| Nov 25 | Tuesday | Zoom office hours | ||
| Nov 26 | Wednesday | Thanksgiving | ||
| Nov 27 | Thursday | Thanksgiving | ||
| Nov 28 | Friday | Thanksgiving | ||
| Dec 2 | Tuesday | Lecture | Unit 6: Optimization | HW 5 |
| Dec 4 | Thursday | Lecture | Quiz 5 | |
| Dec 5 | Friday | Lab | Reading 3 |