๐Ÿ—“๏ธ Week 03 - Computational Thinking and Programming

2024/25 Winter Term

Author

This week, we will keep exploring the Computer Science side of Data Science. We will discuss how to approach problems the computational way, and then we will discuss what algorithms are and practice the art of creating them.

๐Ÿ‘ฉ๐Ÿปโ€๐Ÿซ Lecture Slides

Either click on the slide area below or click here to view it in fullscreen. Use your keypad to navigate the slides. You can also find a PDF version on Moodle.

๐ŸŽฅ Looking for lecture recordings? You can only find those on Moodle.

โœ๏ธ Coursework

This week, there is no coursework or formative strictly speaking (you should start working on those week 5 presentations!) but I would encourage you to take some time to learn a bit of Python. Your programming skills will not be assessed in this course (but they are central to data science!), but this is the perfect opportunity to learn the basics and see how you feel about it.

After accessing Google Colab as per the lab/lecture instructions, try the following:

Ready for a more serious try? LSE DSI students can get a premium license to a Dataquest course in Python for data science. Join the Dataquest: introduction to Python for data science Moodle page and read the instructions carefully for how to gain access.

โœ๏ธ Summative: worth 20%

  • Each group within the class selects an article to present on the Week 05 class (the groups need to be formed by class time on Oct 18th or theyโ€™ll be randomly assigned)
  • The articles to be presented should be vetted by October 25th.
  • Every member of the group will have to take part in the presentation (12 minutes)
  • A discussion will follow the presentation (5-7 minutes)
  • For details on the content of the presentation and marking criteria, refer to this page

๐Ÿ“Ÿ Communication

  • Post your reflections, questions, and links on Slackโ€™s #help or #interesting-materials or #social channels.

References

Real Python. 2023. โ€œIntroduction to Python.โ€ Real Python. https://realpython.com/learning-paths/python3-introduction/.