Visual analytics involves both visual and computational components for empowering human analysts who face the challenges of making sense and making use of large and heterogeneous data sets in various application domains. In order to facilitate the learning process for the students at higher education institutions with regard to both the theoretical knowledge and practical skills in visual analytics, the respective courses must cover a variety of topics and include multiple assessment methods and activities. In this paper, we report on the design and first instantiation of a full term project-based course in visualization and data analysis, which was recently offered to graduate and post-graduate students at our department and met with positive feedback from the course participants.