Track Two Curriculum & Schedule

Intro to Coding: Practical Python for Research Applications

All day one sessions will take place in room 745 at the Elmer Holmes Bobst Library. Track Two will attend 1pm-3pm.

Finding and organizing project files, with emphasis on specifics of Mac and Windows systems
Key shortcuts and skills around command-line tools on Mac and Windows systems–automate the boring stuff
File naming, bulk renaming, and description
Setting up personal storage environment and cloud-storage clients, establishing backup systems
Installation of open-source software and understanding software dependencies
Understanding of how data files (text, tabular) store (encode) characters and sustainable ways to keep files usable over many years
Introduction to common formats for storing and collecting data (tabular, JSON, SQL)
Cleaning and transforming untidy data
Special case studies of spatial data files, image files, time-based media files–how they work and why they are more complex

Room room 745 at the Elmer Holmes Bobst Library. Students attend both sessions, which are held at 10am-12pm and 1pm-3pm.

What is Python, how does it work, where to compose Python scripts
Using the course’s cloud-based Python environment; how to set up Python on your computer
Fundamentals data types (integers, floating point numbers, strings, booleans, dictionaries, lists)
Indexing data structures
Conditional statements and logical operations
Loops
Functions
Practical applications of Python example
Hands-on activity with instructor support on launching a personal Python project

Room room 745 at the Elmer Holmes Bobst Library. Students attend both sessions, which are held at 10am-12pm and 1pm-3pm.

Introducing Pandas library for tabular/dataframe work.
Creating, filtering, sorting, and modifying Pandas dataframes
Understanding of basic principles of data visualization
Python visualizations using matplotlib and the capabilities of Jupyter Notebooks