Syllabus

Get every student writing code in Google Colab before live sessions begin. Local Python is optional in week zero.

• 00.01
  Google Colab — your first notebook, end to end

  No installs. Open a browser, sign into Colab, run a hello-world cell, share a screenshot. That's day one.

  ~15 min read
  ~15 min read
• 00.02
  Optional — installing Python locally for a head start

  If you want to install Python 3.11+ and VS Code on your own machine before live sessions, here is the gentle path.

  ~20 min read
  ~20 min read

Take input, make decisions, repeat with a loop. Write your first useful program.

• 01.01
  Hello, Python

  How Python runs. Scripts vs. notebooks. print(), comments, variables, basic data types, and type conversion.

  ~28 min read
  ~28 min read
• 01.02
  Operators and decisions

  Arithmetic, comparisons, and logical operators. Then if / elif / else — the smallest unit of programmer judgement.

  ~25 min read
  ~25 min read
• 01.03
  Lists (lite), loops, and functions

  A first taste of lists. for over a collection, while with a warning. Then functions — names for the verbs in your program.

  ~32 min read
  ~32 min read

Stop writing one-line scripts. Start organizing information so your programs can handle real-world messiness.

• 02.01
  Lists, going deeper

  Indexing, slicing, append, modifying. Membership with in. A light first taste of list comprehensions.

  ~28 min read
  ~28 min read
• 02.02
  Dictionaries and structured data

  Keys vs. values. Nested data (lists of dictionaries). Looping over a dictionary like a human.

  ~25 min read
  ~25 min read
• 02.03
  Files, error handling, and going local

  Opening files. Reading and writing text. with statements. try / except. Then we switch from Colab to local Python together.

  ~36 min read
  ~36 min read

The week the course earns its title — analyzing real data, calling a real API.

• 03.01
  CSVs and a friendly intro to pandas

  What a CSV is. Reading one with the standard library, then with pandas. head() and column access.

  ~30 min read
  ~30 min read
• 03.02
  Filtering, sorting, grouping

  Boolean filtering, sort_values, value_counts, mean, and a light touch of groupby.

  ~28 min read
  ~28 min read
• 03.03
  Calling an API

  What an API actually is. The requests library. A GET request, parsing JSON, and a little error handling for the network.

  ~30 min read
  ~30 min read

Extend one of your projects into something portfolio-ready. Push it to GitHub. Present on Friday.

• 04.01
  Project planning and code organization

  Breaking a project into steps. Splitting code across files. Writing function names you'll still understand in a week.

  ~24 min read
  ~24 min read
• 04.02
  Build block + GitHub

  Just enough git to publish: init, add, commit, push. Then a real README in markdown.

  ~20 min read
  ~20 min read
• 04.03
  Demo day

  Three to five minutes each. What it does. What you learned. What you'd add next. Cohort gives feedback.

  ~10 min read
  ~10 min read