Course Introduction
Introduction to Programming
4.9.2025
Outline
Teachers
Erkki, Heljä
Senior and junior instructors
What are we learning?
Basic programming concepts using Python as a programming language
Continued in Advanced Programming Course in the second period
Contents
Week | Topic |
1 | Introduction, I/O, variables, conditional statements |
2 | More conditions, loops |
3 | More loops, strings |
4 | Own functions |
5 | Lists and other data structures |
6 | Files |
7 | External libraries |
Initial Exam
If you know programming already and haven't completed similar course with MOOC.fi or in any other Finnish higher institute, you can pass the course with initial exam
Exam takes place on Wednesday September 10th at 16.00
Register via email by the end of this week: erkki.kaila@helsinki.fi
Email subject: "Initial exam"
What is programming?
Writing programs using a programming language
Why?
Although there is a lot of discussion about artificial intelligence and machine learning etc., computers are still quite "stupid"
However, they are great at executing simple tasks repeatedly with great speed
With programming, these kind of tasks can be used to construct solutions to complex problems
Real Life Example
Learning analytics data from elementary school level
Calculations and students' answers to calculations
Goal was to filter the needed rows from the entire data
Example (cont.)
Several tasks, such as
"Find all subtractions where the first number is less than 21 and the second one has only one digit"
...so these are ok:
11 - 6�19 - 4
...but these need to be filtered out:
24 - 7�19 - 11
Short excerpt from the file
SUBTRACTION,70-30,1,48553,anon9159,"2016-01-18 10:29:11"
SUBTRACTION,70-60,1,16787,anon9159,"2016-01-18 10:29:11"
SUBTRACTION,90-40,1,12990,anon9159,"2016-01-18 10:29:11"
SUBTRACTION,14-6,1,35139,anon9159,"2016-01-18 10:29:11"
SUBTRACTION,50-30,1,6575,anon9159,"2016-01-18 10:29:11"
SUBTRACTION,19-3,1,23239,anon9159,"2016-01-18 10:29:11"
SUBTRACTION,80-60,1,7785,anon9159,"2016-01-18 10:29:11"
Approx. 250 000+ lines per file, several files
Program
Python program which filtered 8 different kind of tasks from all files
Writing and testing the program took around 30 minutes
Handling 5 million rows of data took less than a minute
What is Python?
Translated programming language
Used for various purposes, very popular in e.g. AI and bio technology
Powerful and versatile, still simple syntax
What Do We Do in Course?
Two components:
Finally, an exam
Workload
Learning to program requires a lot of work
Workload is around 10 to 20 h per week
...although with previous experience the first weeks may be completed faster
Course Material
All course material is found here
Workshops
Exercises are completed independently, but you don't need to complete them alone
Help can be asked in workshops and in Discord, detailed information is found in MOOC.fi
Attending a workshop live (for the first time) earns you a one bonus points for the course!
Is Programming Difficult?
It may appear to be at first.
Different to other skills
All research emphasizes the importance of active learning
TMC
Programming tasks, quizzes
Automatic assessment, immediate feedback
All exercises can be retaken as many times as needed
First weeks in browser, after that with Visual Studio Code plugin
Registrations
Go to https://programming-25.mooc.fi
If you're a student in University of Helsinki, use the @helsinki.fi email address. Remember to add your student number!
Deadlines
There are no weekly deadlines, all material closes at the end of the year
At least 25 % of points is required from each round to attend the exam
Passing the Course
Minimum requirements:
Tasks get harder during the course, so it is a good idea to try to complete as much as possible from the very beginning
Passing the Course (2)
Grade includes MOOC points (50 %) and exam score (50 %)
Total points | Grade |
90% | 5 |
80% | 4 |
70% | 3 |
60% | 2 |
50% | 1 |
<50% | Fail |
Exams
Three exams, dates to be announced in the material. Exam dates at mooc.fi
Done electronically with own computer; open between 10.00 and 22.00
You can attend as many exams as you like
Use of AI
In this course, the use of language models is:
About AI
"If AI is going to write all the code in the future, do we really need to learn programming ourselves?"
About AI (cont.)
The role of the programmer will definitely change (and has already changed)
Still, very important to understand the code and be able to write and refactor the code
Even more programmers are needed in the future than before!
Previous Course Feedback
Lots of exercises
The course exam was too easy
Why we need to use VS Code?
Why is the deadline of exercises at the exam day?