Good afternoon, everyone.
So as you've probably noticed by now,
computers are everywhere-- everywhere on campus,
outside campus.
You know, outside of computer science,
computer programming has permeated pretty much
every academic field around us, from the hard sciences
to the soft sciences-- even the humanities.
And I studied the mind, brain, and behavior, and so to me,
this is no exception to that rule.
So what is programming?
What is computer programming?
Well, simply put, I think of computer programming
as a way for us to express our ideas to computers.
I know that many of you are probably not
very familiar with the concept.
But I want to convince you all that you are already
programmers, believe it or not.
One of the most interesting ideas
that started the so-called cognitive revolution
after the Second World War was this very idea
that brains process information just like computers do.
So in a sense, your every idea, thought, or action in the world
reflects some routines that run on special hardware-- na
namely, your brain.
I am Thomas Serre.
I'm a [INAUDIBLE] assistant professor in CLPS.
Introduction to Programming for the Mind, Brain, and Behavior.
While providing introduction to the MATLAB programming
language, which is one of the, I would
say, leading scientific programming languages.
So just to be upfront, the idea here
is that the course is geared for students
who have no programming background, or very
little programming background.
The goal of the course is to teach you
everything you need to become an accomplished programmer.
So if you are a brain science student,
this will allow you to move from being an apprentice brain
scientist to what we call a rock star.
You'll be able to implement and run your own experiments
and run subjects on those.
You'll be able to run powerful data
analysis, very sophisticated analysis, on all kinds of data.
If you are not a brain science student,
I think there is still a lot to gain from the course.
So beyond teaching you how to code or program,
a major aspect of the course is to support
the development of you as a computational thinker.
So what is computational thinking?
Computational thinking is a concept or word
from computer science.
And this is a way for us to solve problems
through designed systems and to understand human behavior.
This is a critical way by which we
can understand how technology affects every one of us.
And I think we all agree that this is a very important skill
to gain to flourish in modern society.
Right.
So I am sure many of you probably think that programming
is outside of their ability.
And I just want to tell you from the get-go
that this is just gibberish.
So learning to program is pretty much like many other things
you have to learn in real life.
And I think one good example is learning to cook.
So what becoming a master chef entails
is learning a few-- maybe 20, 25-- basic techniques.
And then once you've learned or mastered those techniques,
you can re-order different steps,
use those techniques on different ingredients.
And from that, you get novel recipes.
And programming is a lot like this.
We're going to learn a few key concepts--
maybe a handful of them.
We're going to learn maybe a dozen or so computer commands.
Once you master those commands, you'll
be able to [? endow ?] your computer
with completely novel capabilities.
So I think the most interesting aspect of this course,
and one of the major goals of this course, is to have fun.
We'll have fun by working with all kinds of data--
experimental data, big data, small data.
And we'll play with robots.
My 8-year-old daughter is learning to program
using a robot.
And I want you you to understand that if she can do that,
all of you can, OK?
So why Wintersession?
I think learning to program is really
like learning a foreign language.
This is something that we should have studied very early
on, and most of us haven't.
One way by which we can learn foreign languages,
and the best way to learn foreign languages,
is via immersion-- total immersion.
And I think of this winter course
as an opportunity to get just that.
We'll be able to spend long hours many days
of the week for four months.
And with zero distraction from other courses
that would take up some of the time.
So the course will start-- it will run from January 4th
to January 23rd.
There will be a little bit of preparatory work.
I think this will be fun.
It should be fun.
The idea is to give you a visual programming
language of [? crash ?].
And this is going to give you a gentle introduction,
if you will, to some of the key concepts that we'll
need later on during the course of the session.
The course will meet three times a week for most of the days.
We will blend lectures, group exercises on the whiteboard,
and programming labs.
In between the meeting times, you guys
will be working in groups towards programming language--
excuse me-- programming assignments,
real-world programming assignments.
The course will culminate with a hackathon, which
will be an opportunity to celebrate
all of your great achievements and to convince everyone of you
that you are now full hackers and real programmers.
So that's all I have.
I hope to see many of you in January.
Thank you.