Programming I

Full course description

This course introduces students to the world of programming. Programming is a core tool of a Brain Scientist, as it allows for manipulating and visualizing neural processes and neural data as well as to translate theoretical ideas into practical applications. Students learn about the principles of programming and basic programming tools, which involves knowledge of data structures and skill in object-oriented programming. Students will also be taught the principles of proper housekeeping of their software, including appropriate commenting of scripts and the implementation of proper version control. Students meet in groups where an instructor explains a set of programming principles, and sends the students home with a task to accomplish by the next meeting. Specifically, students must translate specific tasks into computer code. These tasks will be chosen to link with the content and mathematical insights of other courses. Throughout this programming course, an emphasis will be placed on visualizations of data and algorithms, and on the implementation of basic aspects of specific types of computational models. Hence, in addition to exercises in the mathematics courses, the programming course is the place where the coding of specific models or the simulation of these models will be practiced in coordination with the content courses where these models are introduced. After completing the Programming I, students will be familiar with the core elements of programming and can implement learned mathematical functions or computational principles into programs and (simplified) computational models.

The final assessment for this course is a numerical grade between 0,0 and 10,0.