Week 1:                Introduction to programming and computing as a scientific tool

Part 1: Python

Week 1:                Getting to know the Python Environment, simple commands      

Week 2:                Variables and Identifiers, Statements, List Basics

Week 3:                Operators, Arithmetic and Precedence, Operators Relational, Logical and Membership, Conditionals

Week 4:                Loops, Nested Loops, Functions, Modules

Week 5:                List Manipulation, List slicing, List Slicing with Steps, List Exercises

Week 6:                Strings, String Methods, Strings Practice, Multidimensional Lists, Dictionaries

Week 7:                File I/O, Tuples, Formatting

Week 8:                Namespaces and Scope of Variables, Recursion, Error Handling

Part 2:  Matlab

Week 9:               Quick Conversion from Python: The Matlab environment, Matlab Help, simple commands and calculations, variables, Vectors and Matrices, importing and exporting Data, array calculations

Week 10:             Writing scripts in Matlab: Functions, logical arrays, decision branching, loops.

Plotting, graphics, fitting.

Part 3:  Final project

Week 11-13:       Will include independent learning of additional material

Part 4 :  Final exam

Course Requirements:

Exercises, quizzes and tests (30%), final project (30%), final exam (40%).