UC Berkeley · School of Information · MIDS 2026

What Actually Happened.

A data-backed, empirically verified, statistically significant account of one man's journey through the Master of Information & Data Science program. You are cordially invited to witness the conclusion.

MIKEL CALDERON · MIDS CLASS OF 2026
HEARST GREEK THEATRE · MAY 19, 2026 · 7:00 PM PDT
YOU ARE CORDIALLY INVITED
♥ GITHUB · in LINKEDIN

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You're Invited

Come Watch Me Walk.

After two years, twelve courses, thirty-one books, and one capstone that genuinely slaps — I'm earning my Master of Information & Data Science from UC Berkeley this May.

I would love to have you there in person. The ceremony is at the Hearst Greek Theatre — an outdoor amphitheater on campus. Bring a jacket. It'll be worth it.

Commencement features a keynote by Robert Reich — former U.S. Secretary of Labor and a genuine Berkeley legend. Worth the trip on its own.

Get Tickets — $15 Sign the Guestbook ✨
🎓 I School Ceremony
Hearst Greek Theatre
Tuesday, May 19, 2026
Ceremony: 7:00 PM PDT
Graduates arrive: 5:30 PM
UC Berkeley Campus

Tickets: $15 — tickets.berkeley.edu
Phone: (510) 642-9988
In person: Zellerbach Hall box office
Kids 10 & under: Free (box office day-of)
Tickets by email only. No will call.
Full ceremony details →
🎓 Spring Commencement
California Memorial Stadium
Saturday, May 16, 2026
Ceremony: 10:30 AM PDT
UC Berkeley Campus

Keynote: Robert Reich
Former U.S. Secretary of Labor
Livestream: commencement.berkeley.edu

Empirical Evidence

The Receipts

Verified data. Rigorous methodology. Roughly.

0
Courses Completed
Across 5 semesters. One of them twice.
0hrs
Live Zoom Hours
Camera on. Coffee mandatory. 1.5hrs × 14 weeks × 12 courses.
0hrs
Async Video & Reading
Watched. Actually watched. Most of them.
0+hrs
Total Hours Invested
±200hrs. Methodology: regression + vibes.
0
GitHub Contributions
34 → 69 → 296. A hockey stick. And counting.
78%
Assignment Completion Rate
The other 22% are a conversation for another day.
11:59pm
Preferred Submission Time
A precise, deliberate strategy. Probably.
0
Books Purchased
~37% completion rate. One purchased twice. We move.
0mg
Daily Caffeine
Coke minis, Red Bulls, Celsius. A diversified portfolio.
0hrs
Debugging a Typo
It was a semicolon. We don't discuss this.
6–7
LaTeX Rage Incidents
Fits of uncontrollable, completely justified anger.
0
"You're Still On Mute"
Every. Single. Time.
0
Team Syncs Survived
Group projects. Check-ins. The works.
40+
Tabs Open Right Now
Don't touch that. I'm gonna need it later.
∞
Hours Formatting R Figures
More than I care to count. The axes were never right.
≥1
Luna Keyboard Incidents
At least 1. We don't talk about it.

The Curriculum

Every Course. Every Grade.

Full transparency. No redactions.

Summer
2024
Introduction to Data Science Programming
Practical. Foundational. Exactly what it should be.
Research Design & Applications
A clean start. Two A's. The confidence was real.
A
A+
Fall
2024
Statistics for Data Science
The hard semester. Enough said. We keep going.
Fundamentals of Data Engineering
Held it together. B+.
D
B+
Spring
2025
Statistics for Data Science (retake)
Stared down the same 14 weeks of FOAS. Loved R. Earned it.
Data Visualization
Built something real. Still live at mikelcal.co. Gas.
C+
B
Summer
2025
Applied Machine Learning
Redemption arc: unlocked. This is what it was always supposed to feel like.
A
Fall
2025
Behind the Data: Humans & Values
Bias frameworks, harm auditing, right to know. Brain: thoroughly tickled.
Experiments & Causal Inference
Watched everything. Missed some HW. The C does not tell the full story.
A−
C
Spring
2026
Machine Learning at Scale
PySpark. Databricks. The final boss. Currently surviving.
Capstone — Undercurrent
Global cultural intelligence. 10 countries. 6 languages. Went live March 8, 2026.
IN PROG
IN PROG

Built With

The Tech Stack

Two years of tools, languages, and frameworks. Every one earned.

Infrastructure & Services
AWS
GCP
Databricks
Flask
FastAPI
Postgres
Docker
Redis
Neo4j
Languages
Python
R
JavaScript
HTML (fite me)
Frameworks & Visualization
D3.js
Altair
PySpark
Pandas
scikit-learn

GitHub Activity

The Hockey Stick

Contributions across the program. Year over year. Make it make sense.

2024
2025 — nice
2026 🔥

399 total contributions · and counting

The Journey

A Brushable Timeline

Drag the bottom bar to zoom into any semester. Hover events for details.

← drag context bar to zoom · hover dots for details →

Neural Architecture

The Force-Directed Brain

Every concept, tool, and vibe from the last two years. Drag nodes around.

The Amazon Haul

The Library

31 books. ~37% completion rate. Every one purchased with intention.
Affiliate links — buying through these supports the student loan retirement fund. 🙏

📊 Data Science & Statistics
🤖 Machine Learning & AI
⚡ Spark & Data Engineering
📊 Data Visualization
📈 Causal Inference & Experiments
📑 Databases & Information Retrieval
💕 The Parallel Curriculum

Amazon affiliate links · tag: mikelcal-20 · covers via Open Library · purchases support the student loan retirement fund

Completely Optional

Help Retire the
Student Loans 🎓💸

Attendance is the real gift. But if you're feeling generous and want to contribute to the "Mikel Finally Has A Master's Degree And Also Some Debt" fund — no judgment here, only gratitude.

👓
PayPal
@mikelcal
💜
Venmo
@mikelcal
💚
Cash App
$mikelcal

* Contributions are not tax-deductible. UC Berkeley is, however, very much accredited.