Free Course
Intro to Computer Science
Build a Search Engine & a Social Network
Nanodegree Program
Deep Learning
Discover deep learning, neural networks and machine learning
Accelerate your career with the credential that fast-tracks you to job success.
About this Course
In this introduction to computer programming course, you’ll learn and practice key computer science concepts by building your own versions of popular web applications. You’ll learn Python, a powerful, easy-to-learn, and widely used programming language, and you’ll explore computer science basics, as you build your own search engine and social network.
Course Cost
Free
Timeline
Approx. 3 months
Skill Level
beginner
Included in Product
Rich Learning Content
Interactive Quizzes
Taught by Industry Pros
Self-Paced Learning
Student Support Community
Join the Path to Greatness
This course is your first step towards a new career with the Deep Learning Program.
Free Course
Intro to Computer Science
Enhance your skill set and boost your hirability through innovative, independent learning.
Course Leads
Dave Evans
Instructor
What You Will Learn
lesson 1
Write your First Computer Program
- Sergey Brin's advice on learning to program.
- Get started on your first Python program.
- How to create and use variables in Python.
lesson 2
Write Programs to do Repeating Work
- Introducing procedures.
- Sum procedure with a return statement.
- Equality comparisons and more.
lesson 3
How to Manage Data
- Nested lists.
- A list of strings.
- Aliasing and more.
lesson 4
Responding to Queries
- Data structures.
- Lookup.
- Building the Web Index and more.
lesson 5
How Programs Run
- Measuring speed.
- Spin loop.
- Index size vs. time and more.
lesson 6
How to Have Infinite Power
- Infinite power.
- Counter.
- Recursive definitions and more.
lesson 7
Past, Present, and the Future of Computing
- Past of computing.
- Slac and Big Data.
- Open Source and more.
Prerequisites and Requirements
There is no prior computer programming knowledge needed for this course. Beginners are welcome!
See theTechnology Requirements for using Udacity.
Why Take This Course
You’ll learn the programming language Python, and you’ll explore foundational concepts in computer science. Most importantly, you’ll start thinking like a software engineer by solving interesting problems (how to build a web crawler or a social network) using computer programming.
This course is a first step into the world of computer science, and whether you want to become a software engineer, or collaborate with software engineers, this course is for you. You’ll be prepared for intermediate-level computer science classes when you’ve mastered the concepts covered in this course.
Build a Search Engine
Throughout this course, you’ll build a search engine by learning about and producing key search engine components including a crawler, an index and a page rank algorithm. As you build these pieces, you’ll be learning about and practicing computer science skills that will ready you for intermediate level computer science courses.
Build a Social Network
At the end of the course we will give you a set of relationships (i.e. strings of phrases like “Dave likes Andy, Kathleen and Kristy”) and you will use your new computer science skills to organize these relationships into a social network. With your new social network, you can explore relationships and gain insight into how you fit into your own social networks.