FORC: Practical Python for Research Applications

Intro to Python

Lesson plan developed by Denis Rubin, Nicholas Wolf, and Shreemayi Sonti, NYU Data Services

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Overview

This session is designed to introduce students to both core coding concepts and to Python as a useful language for conducting research. The emphasis is on computer programming for applied research purposes. At the end of the lesson, it is hoped that participants can:

  • Understand core Python classes used all the time in writing code (strings, integers, lists, dictionaries, Booleans)
  • Be able to compose additional helpful structures, namely loops and functions
  • Use Python to open two types of common research data files (text and table/csv)
  • Perform a few example research applications with data files such as modifying text and tables