CSE 163

Control Structures & Strings

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Arpan Kapoor�Summer 2026��💭Icebreaker (discuss with neighbors):

What’s the last movie or TV show you watched or are currently watching? Add to our Slido!

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Agenda

• Overview
• Course structure
• Assessments and Grading
• Introduction to course tools
• Course website
• Ed
• Gradescope
• Content!
• Python Basics
• Control Structures
• Strings

Slido Q&A will be open all class

Overview

What is this class?

1. More advanced programming concepts than in CSE 122 or CSE 160 including how to write bigger programs with multiple classes and modules.�
2. How to work with different types of data: tabular, text, images, geo-spatial, etc.�
3. Ecosystem of data science tools including Jupyter Notebook and various data science libraries including scikit-image, scikit-learn, and pandas data frames.�
4. Basic concepts related to code complexity, efficiency of different types of data structures, and memory management.

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• Foundations of data literacy and technical communication for critical and conscientious data science.

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Overview

Who is taking this class?

This class is designed to have students from

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• 122: Know control structures, file I/O, arrays in Java
• Will spend first weeks learning 122 in Python fast!
• Practice is KEY!�
• 160: Know control structures, file I/O, data structures in Python
• First week will be review while everyone learns Python�
• 123 or Beyond: Seen more advanced programming in Java
• Class material should be complementary to what you would have learned in 123

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Who am I?

Instructor: Arpan Kapoor

• From Des Moines, IA, moved to Washington in 2019
• B.S. in ECE from UW, current M.S. student in EE
• Outside of class, enjoy watching movies, building/collecting Lego, and playing video games!

Teaching Assistants: 4 Amazing TAs!

• Available in section, office hours, and discussion board!
• Invaluable sources of information and help in this course!

Me!

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CSE 163 TAs!

6

Katie Gower

(AA/AB)

Melissa Reyes-Ramirez (AB/AC)

Patrick Yu

(AC)

Sheamin Kim

(AA)

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Lesson Review Due

Prog. Prac. Released/Due�Section Check-in Released�

• We don’t record attendance in lecture/section, but attending these sessions is expected

Lesson Review Due

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Relax!

Pacing

We are releasing the lessons and assessments as we move throughout the quarter

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As a general note: Interacting compassionately and empathetically is key!

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Community is built by all of us! We need you to participate in the active classroom environment. This means

• Attend class sessions and quiz sections when you can
• Participate in discussions on Ed Discussion and chat
• Reach out to your peers and the course staff when you need help!

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Final Project

• Culmination of all the things you learned in this class.
• Open ended project where you find and use real-world datasets to answer an interesting question.
• Broken into various checkpoints throughout quarter:
• Pick a research question and your datasets
• Give preliminary findings about the data
• Gather results and write final report

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Course Resources

• Course website: https://cs.uw.edu/163
• Everything you need is linked from here!
• Check the home page schedule for all links for that day
• Ed: https://edstem.org/us/courses/99614/discussion
• For discussion board and announcements
• Gradescope: https://www.gradescope.com/courses/1303321
• For grades and assignment tracking

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Ways to Execute Code (Main-Method Pattern)

• More applicable to Python scripts (.py files) than Jupyter Notebooks.

Version 1

Version 2

print('Hello World!')

def main():

print('Hello World!')

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if __name__ == '__main__':

main()

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Types and Expressions

• Types in Python
• int: integers
• float: decimal-point numbers
• bool: True or False (Boolean values)

• Expressions : values and operations that evaluate to a value (int, float, bool, etc.)

a = 4.0

b = 3 * 2 + 4 ** 2

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x = True

y = 9 < 4

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Loops and Conditionals

• Two types of loops:
• for: runs for a fixed number of iterations
• while: runs while a certain condition remains True

• Conditionals:
• Can change behavior of your function depending on certain conditions
• Only one behavior is chosen from the branches

n = 5

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if n < 10:

print(‘A’)

elif n < 20:

print(‘B’)

else:

print(‘C’)

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Anatomy of a Function

14

def function_name(parameter, ...):

#Function code

return value

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def keyword

Function name

Optional

parameters

Function code

colon

Indentation

Return statment

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Strings

• Strings
• Text data that has indices for characters
• Has functions to transform (and return new) strings!
• String slicing

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String Methods vs. len

Call functions on strings using syntax

This is not true for len (or other built-in Python functions)

Can you think of other built-in Python functions?

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len(s)

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s.function(params)

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Lesson Highlights

• Most of this lesson should have been mostly familiar
• variables, conditionals, loops, functions, etc.

• New Python syntax things may be the “newest” thing you’ve encountered
• Colons after function and loop definitions
• No brackets, semicolons, or variable type definitions

Main method pattern!

• Syntax is different (which is okay!)
• Can’t explain entire grammar. Learn by looking at fragments and playing with code.
• Gets better with practice! Try things and see how they change the code.
• Indentation is important!

def main():

print('Hello world!')

if __name__ == '__main__':

main()

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