Hello,
My name is Tom Hills and I'm a last year CS graduate student. Previously, I worked as a radiation safety physicist for 5 years with a BS/MS in Physics. Unfortunately, I gradually discovered that employment opportunities for fresh graduates in this field were far from ideal despite being sold otherwise by sources desperate to keep the field alive. Luckily, I was presented with the opportunity to return to school for a change of career, so I switched gears and went back to the first major I declared back in 2003 before physics: Computer Science.
As for this course, I am interested in finding out more about analyzing large data sets, especially in regards to "real world" data which, in all likelihood, is poorly structured.