Using Python for Research

EdX HarvardX

Over the past two weeks I've started an online course covering python basics, python research libraries, and some specific case studies. To start, edx.org is a fantastic site with a great cause: spreading knowledge. You can take free courses from leading institutions like Harvard, but enough of the unpaid promotion. My interest in this course stemmed from a few places. Namely, the desire to learn python, use machine learning libraries, and general lust for information.

EdX has a ton of learning python and python for _blank_ courses available from universities & corporations. However, as a totally bias human being, I wanted to take the Harvard course being I have a sibling there (or maybe I don't, you'll never know internet reader). Regardless, I wanted to learn the programming language python in a directly applicable way and this course offered that. So I signed up. Python appealed to me after watching videos on machine learning and seeing how easy python was to write in. Especially compared to the syntax of java and c, my collegiality learned languages.

After my last blog post on learning python via a youtube series on machine learning, I followed through the first level of a data camp python for data science tutorial. Super simple. Anyone could follow through that with little no programming experience at all. BUT it had me hooked. Much to the displeasure of my significant other, who is always asking what I am doing staring blankly at the computer... So in an effort to make the most out of this course, I've started a github repository to save my work in. These are my homework solutions, which I assume are not the most efficient versions of the answer so feel free to leave comments on them in any constructive way. (My github can be reached through the link above or via the side bar link.)

Lastly, I just wanted to touch on the general desire to learn. I've always been raised to believe that anyone is capable of learning and growing. I firmly believe that and I'm not going to go off on a tangent about it. However, I want to admit that sometimes I go about learning in a very lazy manner and I want to change that. Which is part of my goal with this blog, summarize my learning in a way that I can come back and see what I've done. Reinforce my goals. So I hope to continue these updates to organize my projects and goals while being able to show what I've accomplished.

Thanks for reading! Stay tuned for more on my path through python, started with software defined radios, hardware hacking write ups, and more. Let me a comment if you have any tips for staying focused through an EdX course or general advice on any MOOCs. Have any suggestions for what courses to take next?

~r0b0bcb