📚 Week 01 Lab - Preparation

2025/26 Winter Term

Author

Dr. Ghita Berrada

Before coming to the Week 01 lab, please complete the following preparation tasks:

  1. Follow the instructions on the Getting Ready page to set up your computer.

  2. If you are new to Python, please book a place on the in-person Python workshops offered by the LSE Digital Skills Lab (head to the Training and Development System and select Python Pre-Sessional Workshops).

  3. Create a directory on your computer dedicated to this course (you can name it DS202W). Within it, create subfolders: a scripts subfolder (to put your notebooks into) and a data subfolder (to put your data into). Put the setup.ipynb notebook mentioned in the Getting Ready page in the scripts subfolder you’ve just created.

  4. Using Terminal/Command Line/Powershell commands, change your current directory to the scripts directory (cd command+ relative path)

  5. (Optional but highly recommended) Create a new conda environment:

       conda create --name DS202W
   conda init
   conda activate DS202W

  6. Run setup.ipynb to install numpy, pandas and scikit-learn in the DS202W environment (or the base environment if you’ve skipped step 5).

  7. Install the lets-plot library with pip. On the terminal/Command line/Powershell, type:

    pip install lets-plot

  8. Check the roadmap of the 📚W01 lab to see what to expect from the upcoming lab.

  9. Got any problems with the above? Post a message on the #help channel on Slack (invite coming any moment now!). If instructors are not available, other colleagues may be able to help you.