Week 1 • Monday

Block 1: Setup & First Script

Install Python/Jupyter, run your first .py file and notebook cell.

Concepts

Python vs Jupyter notebook (.py vs .ipynb)
print() to display output
Running cells in JupyterLab or VS Code

Code Examples

Basic print statements

print('Hello, World!')
print(42)
print(3.14)
print(True)

Using datetime

import datetime
today = datetime.date.today()
print(f'Today is {today}')
print(f'Year: {today.year}, Month: {today.month}, Day: {today.day}')

Exercise

Write a script that prints a greeting, your name, and today's date using datetime.date.today()

Solution

import datetime
print('Hello! Welcome to Python Training!')
print('My name is [Your Name]')
print('Today\'s date:', datetime.date.today())

Practice Problems

Problem 1: Create a script that prints your name, favorite programming language, and a fun fact about yourself.

Hint: Use multiple print() statements or one with newlines (\n)

Problem 2: Print the current date in format: 'YYYY-MM-DD'

Hint: datetime.date.today() returns a date object; use str() or format it

Application

Data scientists use Jupyter notebooks daily for exploratory analysis—each cell can be run independently, making it ideal for iterative experimentation.

Case Study

A data analyst at a retail company uses Jupyter to explore sales data. They run cells incrementally: first load data, then clean it, then visualize. The notebook becomes a shareable report with code and outputs together.

Homework

Write 5 bullet points on why Python is used in data/ML.