Two of my courses were designed especially higher education institutions in mind. The Programming Bootcamp for Scientists that I have been teaching at the Weizmann Institute of Science as a guest lecturer since 2018 and the Open Source Development Course that I started to teach at the beginning of 2023.
At the Weizmann Institute of Sciences my students are primarily from various areas of life sciences studying for their Masters degree, doing their PhD, or working on their post-doc. Some of these student have no programming background. Some have already taken a one or two programming related courses. Yet others have already written code, usually in R or Matlab. Their goals, besides getting the credit, also varies. Some already know they need to write software for their lab, others only have a vague idea that this course might help them in the future. This mix of backgrounds and goals provide extra challenges during the course, but this is also what makes it interesting.
I have been teaching this course once every semester.
Originally it was an in-person 5 days course (9:00-17:00 each day) the week before the semester started. Then as the COVID pandemic made the in-person courses impossible we switched to Zoom. We also had a version where the students watched the already recorded videos and our Zoom sessions were to have discussions and to get one-on-one help and feedback. Once we could get back the class-rooms we changed format again and had 5 half-days in a single week before the semester and the 5 more half-days during the semester.
Each one of these formats has its advantages and disadvantages.
Roi Avraham, Senior scientist at Weizmann Institute
I've heard about the Python courses Gabor ran in the Weizmann Institute of Science earlier and invited him to run the Programming Skills bootcamp for the graduate students in the institute in fall 2018. Gabor and the bootcamp got very good feedback from the students and we have invited him to run the same bootcamp again in the fall of 2019.
This is a new course that was designed both higher-education institutions and corporations in mind. It is designed to fit students both in Computer Sciences and in any other discipline where they learn some programming. For example all the students who study or work at research labs where they write software and use open source software. In this course the participants learn several tools and techniques used in software development such ash git, GitHub, Docker, testing, Continuous Integration and practice on real Open Source projects.
I taught this course several times as an open enrollment course and also at the Azrieli College of Engineering.
Shuly Avraham, Scientific Computing at HaZera.
Many thanks, Gabor. It has been a very enriching and enlightening course. I learnt a lot, from new things to strengthening my prior knowledge. The subjects learnt are very important to every programmer, whether an open source developer or not. Your patience is very appreciated as well as your honest will to make your students truly dive into practice. I will definitely recommend your courses and meetups, and attend them when I can.
If you are interested to discuss which course and which format will be good for your institution, let's discuss it either via email at gabor@szabgab.com or schedule a call: