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About

The project

Dakota Learns is what it says: a place where I learn in public and share it, free and beginner-first. Let's learn something together.

Right now the focus is computer science — full, free courses designed to be portable (recognizable as solid CS anywhere), aligned to recognized standards (ABET, ACM/IEEE-CS CS2023), and honest about what they do and don't cover. But the project isn't defined by one subject. It started as a personal blog in 2022 — covering everything from databases to security to the occasional life lesson — sparked by a simple idea from the data community: get involved, share what you learn, help others on the same journey. CS is where my energy is today (and where I'm headed as a teacher); if I'm learning something else worth sharing, it may show up here too.

The blog is now the journal of that process, and the early posts are all still here.

Who's behind it

I'm Dakota Hollmann — a lead-level data engineer with 10+ years in data and analytics, currently architecting enterprise-scale telemetry pipelines (165B+ rows/hour for 30M+ customers). I hold an MBA in Data Analytics (Florida Gulf Coast University) and a BS in Computer Science with a math minor (Metropolitan State University of Denver).

I also give back to the program I came from: I serve on MSU Denver's Computer Science and Data Science & Machine Learning advisory boards, have delivered guest lectures on databases and technical-interview prep, and am preparing to teach as adjunct faculty. This site is part of that preparation — the materials I'm building to teach from, shared openly so anyone can learn from them too.

I leaned on free and open resources my whole way through school and throughout my career — and I plan to keep doing so as I teach. This is me paying that forward.

Affiliation

Independent educational materials created by Dakota Hollmann. Not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Metropolitan State University of Denver. MSU Denver course codes and objectives are referenced for curriculum alignment only.

How it's licensed

For commercial use or to create and share an adaptation, reach out — it may well be welcome. These licenses cover my original work only; courses reference their textbooks (e.g., by chapter) but never reproduce them.

Support (optional)

Everything here is free, and always will be at the content level. If it helped you and you'd like to support more of it being made, you can — entirely optional, and nothing is ever locked behind it.

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