Reading List

We are often asked to provide a reading list for the Data Science for Biology programme.  You will find that individual courses that make up the programme provide reading lists in their online description, and they will then typically provide further reading when you start a course.  

If you are interested in preparing for a particular course, then this reading this material is a good place to start.  But if I were to suggest one topic to read about in preparation for the overall programme it would be to read and learn about the Python programming language.  

In my own work I use a variety of programming languages, and if you asked which one I find most useful for data science work, I would say R not Python.  So why am I suggesting to focus on Python in preparation for the data science programme?    The reason is that Python is a general-purpose programming language, and it is used internally within many of the Edinburgh data science courses.  So it helps to have some working knowledge of Python from day 1 of the programme.  

This knowledge would also give you a foundation in basic programming concepts that easily generalise to other languages such as R.  But don’t worry if you don’t have time to brush up on Python before the programme starts, there will also be a Python primer offered at the start of the programme.   This will then be followed by several Python courses you can take for credit during the teaching semesters.