About This Course

This course goes beyond traditional programming instruction by aiming to develop students’ problem-solving abilities through a mathematical perspective. The core approach of the course is to guide students toward learning MATLAB as a tool for thinking through mathematical problems and solving the challenges they encounter. This method encourages students to either deepen their existing interest in mathematics or cultivate new interest throughout the course.

During the course, foundational topics such as variables, arrays, conditional statements, loops, functions, and plotting are covered through a project-based learning approach. The learning process is largely supported through assignments and projects completed outside of class. Students are expected to devote approximately four hours of work per week. By the end of the course, participants will be able to use MATLAB effectively in both academic and professional contexts, and the programming fundamentals they gain will prepare them to transition comfortably to other computational languages such as Java, C++, or Python.

Prerequisites

There are no formal prerequisites for this course.
The aim of the course is to help undergraduate students learn the fundamentals of programming in general, and MATLAB® programming in particular. Only the most basic aspects of MATLAB programming will be covered; the goal is for students to gain enough comfort to continue learning MATLAB and other programming languages independently.

Instructor

Yossi Farjoun

Applied mathematician and programmer with extensive experience in modeling, numerical simulation, and optimization. He currently serves as the Principal Bioinformatics Scientist at Fulcrum Genomics.