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My girlfriend who's an MD wants to learn how to program. How should she start?

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My girlfriend who's an MD wants to learn how to program. How should she start?

#1

Post by DrorY »

Hi all,

This is a question for anyone here who started programming at a late age, after coming to it from a different field.

My girlfriend (who's 25 +-) has finished her doctorat in medicine and is now starting her PHD. As part of her research she needs to learn how to program in Matlab as well as quite extensive mathematics (as she needs to perform a lot of analytics on research she conducts).

She doesn't have any experience in programming, and little mathematics background.

What would be the best way to learn matlab and other mathematical concepts?

Re: My girlfriend who's an MD wants to learn how to program. How should she start?

#3

Post by zachgalant »

She needs to check out http://codehs.com (disclosure: I'm a cofounder).

We make it really easy and accessible for people to get started even without having a background.

We've had students aged 9 (http://blog.codehs.com/post/39684965497/9-years-old-and-codi...)

to 85 (http://blog.codehs.com/post/37288742720/im-85-and-i-learned-...)

We focus on teaching the fundamentals of thinking like a programmer, so even though the site is based in JavaScript, she'll be able to apply her knowledge towards matlab.

Also, it's really fun, and if she continues, she will learn to make a mobile game or two along the way.

You can email me at zach@codehs.com if you or she have any questions. Or just sign up for the free trial to check it out.

We give personal feedback to all of our students on all the code they submit, so they're sure to improve and not only write functional code, but code with good style.

Re: My girlfriend who's an MD wants to learn how to program. How should she start?

#5

Post by DrorY »

zachgalant wrote: post #3

She needs to check out http://codehs.com (disclosure: I'm a cofounder). We make it really easy and accessible for people to get started even without having a background. We've had students aged 9 ( http://blog.codehs.com/post/39684965497/9-years-old-and-codi... ) to 85 ( http://blog.codehs.com/post/37288742720/im-85-and-i-learned-... ) We focus on teaching the fundamentals of thinking like a programmer, so even thoug…

Do you teach Matlab specifically? This can be an excellent B'day gift.

Re: My girlfriend who's an MD wants to learn how to program. How should she start?

#6

Post by zachgalant »

DrorY wrote: post #5
zachgalant wrote: post #3

She needs to check out http://codehs.com (disclosure: I'm a cofounder). We make it really easy and accessible for people to get started even without having a background. We've had students aged 9 ( http://blog.codehs.com/post/39684965497/9-years-old-and-codi... ) to 85 ( http://blog.codehs.com/post/37288742720/im-85-and-i-learned-... ) We focus on teaching the fundamentals of thinking like a programmer, so even thoug…

Do you teach Matlab specifically? This can be an excellent B'day gift.

no, we don't teach matlab. maybe we'll add that in the future.

for now, I think she'd just get a lot out of learning some of the fundamentals of programming rather than diving straight into matlab.

having a grasp of some of the basics will only help her understanding of matlab, and I'd even recommend trying to work on it concurrently.

If she gets started on CodeHS, I guarantee she'll learn a lot and have fun in the process.

Re: My girlfriend who's an MD wants to learn how to program. How should she start?

#7

Post by lutusp »

Because for her, programming will be a means to an end, and that end is data analysis and statistics, I recommend that she learn Python and its scientific and analytical libraries like numpy and scipy.

Python is relatively easy to learn, it's free, and it can produce useful results with little effort.

Python: http://www.python.org/

Scipy: http://scipy.org/

Examples of scipy's output: https://www.google.com/search?q=scipy&hl=en&tbo=d&#3...

Re: My girlfriend who's an MD wants to learn how to program. How should she start?

#8

Post by DrorY »

zachgalant wrote: post #6
DrorY wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you teach Matlab specifically? This can be an excellent B'day gift.

no, we don't teach matlab. maybe we'll add that in the future. for now, I think she'd just get a lot out of learning some of the fundamentals of programming rather than diving straight into matlab. having a grasp of some of the basics will only help her understanding of matlab, and I'd even recommend trying to work on it concurrently. If she gets started on CodeHS, I guarantee she'll learn a lot and have fun in the p…

What would be the closet thing to Matlab she could learn in codehs? (Similar syntax similar core concepts)

Do you have any plans of adding Matlab anytime soon?

Re: My girlfriend who's an MD wants to learn how to program. How should she start?

#9

Post by DrorY »

lutusp wrote: post #7

Because for her, programming will be a means to an end, and that end is data analysis and statistics, I recommend that she learn Python and its scientific and analytical libraries like numpy and scipy. Python is relatively easy to learn, it's free, and it can produce useful results with little effort. Python: http://www.python.org/ Scipy: http://scipy.org/ Examples of scipy's output: https://www.google.com/search?q=s…

While this is true, it seems as though Matlab is the tool used for her work at her laboratory, she needs to join an already going project.
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