National course open for PhD students, postdocs, researchers and other employees in all Swedish universities, in need of fundamental Python skills. We also welcome applications from outside of Sweden and from the non-academic sector, for more info contact us!

Important dates and information

Application opens: 2024-06-11
Application closes: 2024-09-24

Confirmation to accepted students: 2024-10-02

Course content

This course provides a practical introduction to the writing of Python programs for the complete novice. Participants are led through the core aspects of Python illustrated by a series of example programs. Upon completion of the course, attentive participants will be able to write simple Python programs from scratch and to customize more complex code to fit their needs.

Format

This course runs in parallel on-site in Uppsala, Umeå and Lund. Lectures will be streamed online from our Uppsala site to the Umeå and Lund sites. Several teaching assistants will be present in all three classrooms all week to help with exercises and questions. When registering you will be asked to which site you apply.

The course consists of a mix of presentations, demonstrations, and practical exercises (either in the lab with assistants or on your own). Prior to the course, you can read a companion book “Programming Python”, or “Learning Python”. Such a book will also prove useful for your programming tasks, after the course is over. It is however not required, and material will be presented in class.

Topics covered will include:

• Core concepts about Python syntax: Data types, blocks and indentation, variable scoping, iteration, functions, methods and arguments
• Different ways to control program flow using loops and conditional tests
• Regular expressions and pattern matching
• Writing functions and best-practice ways of making them usable
• Reading from and writing to files
• Code packaging and Python libraries
• How to work with biological data using external libraries.

Selection criteria

Due to limited space the course can accommodate a maximum of 25 participants in Uppsala and 15 in Umeå and Lund. If we receive more applications, participants will be selected based on selection criteria, including (but not limited to) correct entry requirements, motivation to attend the course, as well as gender and geographical balance.

Please note that NBIS training events do not provide any formal university credits. The training content is estimated to correspond to 1.5 hp credits, however the estimated credits are just recommendations. If formal credits are crucial, the student needs to confer with the home department before submitting a course application in order to establish whether the course is valid for formal credits or not.

Course fee

A course fee* of 3000 SEK for academic participants and 15000 SEK for non-academic participants will be invoiced to accepted participants. The fee includes lunches, coffee and snacks, and course dinner.
*Please note that NBIS cannot invoice individuals