Find out more

To hear details of the next available course please register your interest or contact:  

 Dr Matthew Williams

Date

This short course is not currently running.

Location

South Kensington Campus

Who is it for

This two-day course is ideal for medical students, doctors, epidemiologists, clinical researchers and teaching fellows who are interested in learning to code.

About the Course

We aim to introduce students to two practical aspects of computer programming: How to write, run, debug and share simple programs, and how to think about constructing computer programs that do useful things.

We use Python as an introductory computer language, and follow a graded series of practical exercises to develop an understanding of programming concepts (types, loops, conditionals and data structures) and well as programming practices (code design, modularity, comments, defensive programming, debugging).

Apply

Please register your details by completing this electronic form. Then please complete the payment form below if you wish to attend, ensuring you select the correct pricing. If your employer/sponsor will be paying for the course, please ensure you have their permission before applying.

Prerequisites

This course is aimed at complete novices, all you need to bring is a laptop and enthusiasm.

Course Structure

There will be two days of structured teaching, which covers:

  • Getting set up and how to use the command line
  • Types
  • Control loops
  • Functions
  • Programming environments
  • Input and Output and how to utilise functions
  • Debugging
  • Algorithms and Complexity
  • Error handling
  • How to get help in a computing world and how to talk to a computer scientist
  • Further Topics: Signposting of other languages, fields, and routes forward

The majority of the teaching will take place as tutorials where students code along with the instructor and are supported by a number of teaching assistants. 

The course will be 09.30 - 17:00 both days. Lunch will not be provided.

Follow-up

At the end of the two-day teaching course, students are challenged to write a simple but useful program for either research or a clinical problem and are given two weeks in which to submit this to the Course Instructors. During this two weeks, online support will be provided via an online chat forum.  Detailed feedback will be provided on your project.

Cost

  • Imperial College London Undergraduate Students (Medicine and Biomedical science) – FREE (Please note there are limited free spaces)
  • Imperial College London Undergraduate students/Postgraduate students on other courses -£50
  • Imperial College Staff and Healthcare NHS Trust Staff - £150
  • External - £200

Please use this link for payments

Certificates will be provided to all participants, and extended certificates sent to those who complete the extended project.