UCL Learning Portfolio

Do you want to learn how to start using programming for your research? In this course you’ll learn the basics of programming using Python so that you will be able to apply this knowledge to your research. Though the course is in Python, the concepts you will learn are applicable to any other programming language.

This course teaches the basics of programming using Python with the focus to use it for research. It’s aimed to researchers that have no experience of programming – in any language - before. If you're already comfortable, with variables, loops, and functions; then this course is not for you.

This session will cover:

1. Fundamental Python language syntax
2. The different ways to use Python
3. Data structures with lists and dictionaries
4. Repeating actions and making choices
5. Files and the filesystem
6. Making functions
7. Visualising data

By the end of this course you will be able to:

• Use python from different interfaces
• Write your own programs that will allow you to repeat an experiment
• Create functions to be able to reuse it from different programs
• Read and write data files from a program
• Visualise your data
• Understand other programming languages

Intended audience:

• Graduate students from any discipline
• Researchers without previous programming experience