Abstract The growing importance of data competency implies that adequate Data Science course offerings should be available to all students regardless of their interests, backgrounds and intended major. This paper describes the design and implementation of a course targeted at a non-technical audience and centered on data science literacy, with a focus on collecting, processing, analyzing and using data. The objective is through general education to prime students at an early stage of their education for the changes in the data-driven society and to provide them with skills to navigate capably in today’s data-rich world. Our experience and evaluation results indicate that it is realistic for a diverse population of undergraduate students to acquired data science literacy and practical skills through a general education course.