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STAT 201-0 : Introduction to Programming for Data Science

Description

This course aims to create a strong basis for students' programming knowledge for Data Science. The coding languages are Python and R. Previous programming experience is not required. Students will learn how to code scripts that implement basic yet important tasks from scratch and run them to interpret the results. For both languages, the course will cover basic coding concepts such as control flows, loops, functions, data structures, object-oriented programming and recursion. Another key data skill included in the course is how to translate a problem from layman terms to a coding problem in Python and R; utilizing good coding practices. This course will provide the necessary programming background to students for more advanced data science courses.

Prerequisites/Registration Requirements: None

Please note STAT 201-0 is an introductory programming course for statistics and data science, not an introductory statistics course. It will not satisfy the requirement of "an introductory statistics course" and cannot be used as a substitution for STAT 202-0, STAT 210-0, or STAT 232-0.

Learning Objectives: At the completion of this course, students should be able to: - Write, execute, debug and test code in Python and R - Use conditional statements and loops to implement various tasks - Incorporate the appropriate data structures of a programming language to handle data - Create user-defined and recursive functions to create specialized code blocks - Incorporate best coding practices for reproducibility and efficiency - Communicate with code via GitHub in order to efficiently seek help and share programming work with others.

Teaching Method: Remote asynchronous - The weekly videos will be released on Panopto (via Canvas) during the week before and there will be weekly office hours on Thursdays and Fridays. Evaluation Method: There will be 6 homework assignments, (50%) a take-home midterm exam, (25%) and a take-home final exam. (25%)

Required Class Materials: A laptop that is able to run Anaconda Navigator for Python programming and RStudio for R programming. Suggested Class Materials: The Python textbook is A Practical Introduction to Python Programming by Brian Heinold. The R textbook is An Introduction to R by Alex Douglas et al. Both textbooks are available online on the authors’ web pages.

Additional Information:

PLEASE NOTE: The registration period for ALL summer courses is April 8, 2024 through June 16, 2024, even if the course begins later in the summer.