🗓️ Week 03 - Computational Thinking and Programming

2025/26 Autumn 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.

👩🏻‍🏫 Lecture Slides

🚧 This material will be updated before the lecture. Watch this space!

✍️ Coursework

This week, there is no coursework or formative strictly speaking (you should start working on those week 4 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:

running the code provided in the week 2 class. See if you can understand what it does.
learn the basics of Python. Check out this tutorial from Google or this Python for Beginners guide from the Python Software Foundation. Real Python (2023) is also a good resource to start with.
practice the basics of Python by trying out some of the sorting and searching exercises on this page.
try implementing the Dijkstra algorithm we discussed today in Python.
start getting a feel for pandas i.e the Python library most used for data science purpose here.

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.

📚 Recommended Reading

Check the end of slides for the list of references cited in the lecture.
Check the 📔 Syllabus for this week’s complete list of indicative and recommended readings.

📟 Communication

Post your reflections, questions, and links on Slack’s #help or #interesting-materials or #social channels.

References

Real Python. 2023. “Introduction to Python.” Real Python. https://realpython.com/learning-paths/python3-introduction/.