Python Foundation Course

This is a full-day course that has been commissioned by the network. Please only sign up if you are able to attend the full session.

 

Who should attend

Python is the most popular open-source language. People who want to understand if Python could be useful in their work. This is a foundation course in Python suitable for beginners.

Course Length

09:30-16:00

Learning Objectives

You will get a taste for Python and what it can do. You will learn how to get started in Python.

Pre-requisites

None. This is a beginner level course.

Course Content

Get started in Python: Write Hello World in Python.

Write and run Python in Google Colab notebooks (a free browser-based service for editing and running Python code)

Python Language fundamentals

• basic syntax and the REPL (read-evaluate-print-loop) interactive approach to coding,
• variables and why these are useful,
• control flow: branching with if – elif – else and looping with for and while,
• Python’s intrinsic data types: int, float and str (strings)

How to index and slice arrays such as strings and lists, and why this is useful.

Data structures: Why they are useful and ubiquitous.

• lists: create, append, remove, sort, elements in a list.
• tuples, create, use in functions and unpack into variables
• dicts, and their many uses.

A quick tour of some popular useful Python libraries, for example:

• the datetime module for handling dates and date arithmetic
• the requests module for getting data from web pages
• the math and statistics modules

A few comments from attendees of previous courses

“I really enjoyed the course and it has boosted my confidence in using Python. The instructor was excellent at coaching and resolving everyone’s problems.”

“The presenter was excellent and kept us all well engaged. It was a really useful course and showed us some of the fundamentals of Python code.”