ESDS Advanced is built so that the first week is broadly accessible, while later material assumes more. Prerequisites are layered by week and day by day.
Partial attendance is allowed: you can take Week 1 on its own, but Weeks 2 through 4 each require Week 1 first.
Week 2 builds directly on the cowork-tools and Claude Code skills from Week 1, so completing the first week is required.
Week 3 involves architecting, building, training, and tuning deep learning models, and Week 4 builds on that core — evaluating models, building on other models, and incorporating them into research pipelines. Both assume comfort with scientific programming in addition to the Week 1 material.
You'll need access to the course's cloud resources and to Claude / Claude Cowork and Claude Code — all provided at no cost through the course. The Setup & Day 0 Checklist walks through accounts, installs, and verification steps. If anything is missing, ask on the course Slack channels, or register here if you haven't yet — instructors will reach out.