Berkeley IEOR Students Bring Machine Learning to Local High Schoolers

This spring, a team of UC Berkeley Industrial Engineering and Operations Research (IEOR) students partnered with the Dado and Maria Banatao Center for Global Learning and Outreach from Berkeley Engineering (GLOBE) to launch an innovative course introducing Bay Area high school students to the fundamentals of machine learning.

The course was conceived by Shreejal Luitel (BS IEOR ’24, MEng ’25) and developed in collaboration with Assistant Teaching Professor Phillip Kerger and fellow IEOR students Samantha Lee (BS IEOR ’25) and Andrew Chan (BS IEOR ’25). Each week, 20 high school students gathered at Berkeley’s SkyDeck building for engaging, accessible instruction on core machine learning concepts.

Inspired by his experience as a GLOBE Ambassador in Taiwan, where he developed a global perspective and appreciation for cross-cultural learning, Luitel saw an opportunity to create local impact through education. Motivated by his passion for mentorship, he worked with his peers and faculty to design a course that would make machine learning more inclusive and approachable.

“I wanted to design a course that would empower students from underserved backgrounds with the tools and confidence to explore STEM, particularly machine learning,” said Luitel. “Working with this team and seeing our students grow more excited each week was deeply rewarding.”

The team collaborated with GLOBE to establish a partnership with local high schools and deliver a hands-on, student-centered curriculum. Lectures emphasized intuitive learning and interactivity, introducing key mathematical foundations in a clear and engaging way. Topics were often “gamified” to promote creativity, collaboration, and deeper understanding.

Over the course of several weeks, students explored core principles of machine learning and completed final projects where they applied ML techniques to synthetic datasets. They concluded the program by presenting their work to peers and instructors.

Assistant Teaching Professor Phillip Kerger, who advised and co-taught the course, emphasized the importance of accessibility. “We wanted students to come away feeling like machine learning is something they can understand and use, not something reserved solely for experts or academics.”

Learn more about GLOBE