COMPLETED SECOND PYTHON CLASS

I have completed Python Data Structures from the University of Michigan on Coursera, the second class in the Python Specialization. I also now know how to calculate the area under the curve of functions in calculus.

Good times!

Programming

For the final week of my programming class, I learned about tuples. Tuples are very similar to lists, except they aren’t as editable. At first, I didn’t understand the point of tuples because you can’t sort, change, or add variables to them like you can with lists.

However, they are much faster to process in Python which makes them ideal when you’re not planning on saving and manipulating variables. For our programming assignment, we counted the number of times each hour was present in a series of emails and returned each hour with the number of times it was used.

We have now completed all of the basic Python applications. The next classes will be expanding upon all of the ideas and applying them in different ways.

I will continue with this specialization for now. I need to complete Machine Learning: Regression, which I had stopped in order to learn how to code, by April 7th to get a certificate. I can complete a lot in 4 months. I’m not sure if I’ll finish the next 3 courses in the Python specialization, but we’ll see.

Mathematics

We learned how to evaluate definite integrals in calculus this week on Khan Academy. Up until this point, we have only studied the properties of integrals, but not how to calculate them.

Using the two Fundamental Theorems of Calculus and antiderivatives, you can calculate the area under the curve of a graph or function between two points. It’s actually simpler than I would have imagined.

Area under the curve is used frequently in statistics, but it was always calculated automatically when I used it in R or Python. It’s interesting to me how many statistics problems, including linear regression, require calculus. It also makes me realize that my previous statistics classes were lacking because we never did any of this.

I have encountered another misplacement of lectures on Khan Academy. I was on one of the final lessons of my definite integrals evaluation, and became completely lost by trigonometric integration techniques that were being discussed. It turns out that the next section is all about integration techniques and should be taken first.

I wasn’t able to complete the last two lectures, but I’ll return to them once I complete the next lesson. No harm, no foul.

Conclusion

I’m only half way through integral calculus, and it’s going much more slowly than I would like, but I’m learning a lot and I’m enjoying the class. Programming is also going well and I can’t wait to be able to apply my knowledge in new and exciting ways.

Thank you for reading. Keep reaching for your dreams and I’ll see you next week!