Gain insights into conducting meaningful data analysis in Python without prior programming experience. Discover Python fundamentals, data preprocessing, EDA, and predictive analytics for solving business problems.

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Python3

Ready to move past Excel for complex business analysis? Then you’ll find this course very helpful.

This hands-on introductory Data Science course is aimed at professionals and students who don't have any experience with programming. It will help you advance your career by preparing you to conduct meaningful data analysis in Python on any dataset — large or small.

You’ll begin with the fundamentals of Python, with focus on CSV files in Python, covering concepts like data preprocessing and Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA). In the second half, you'll focus on predictive and inferential analysis using statistical and machine learning techniques, and learn how these techniques can help solve business problems.

Data Science for Non-Programmers

# Function
A **function** in a programming language is a reusable block of code that will be executed when called. You can pass data to it and it can return data as well. 

Think of a function as a box that performs a task. We give it an input and it returns an output. We don’t need to write the code again for different inputs, we could just call the function again.

Until now, we have only been using `print` and `len`. Both of these are functions. They perform a specific predetermined task. These are called **built-in** functions as they come with the Python language. Similarly, there are many other functions that come built-in. 

Let's say we want to find the minimum of two numbers.  

num1 = 10
num2 = 40
# code to check minimum number
if num1 < num2:
  minimum = num1
else:
  minimum = num2
print(minimum)

num1 = 250
num2 = 120
# code to check minimum number
if num1 < num2:
  minimum = num1
else:
  minimum = num2
print(minimum)

num1 = 100
num2 = 100
# code to check minimum number
if num1 < num2:
  minimum = num1
else:
  minimum = num2
print(minimum)

For every new pair of integers, we need to write the `if-else` statement again. This could become much simpler if we had a function to perform the necessary steps for calculating the minimum. The good news is that Python already has the `min` function:

# find minimum using function
minimum = min(10,40)
print(minimum)

# find minimum using function
minimum = min(250,120) 
print(minimum)

# find minimum using function
minimum = min(100, 100)
print(minimum)

# It even works with multiple arguments
minimum = min(100,120,34,56)
print(minimum)

We use the `min` function just like we use `print` and `len`; we pass in a list of values separated by commas.  

This was an example of using **built in** functions. But we can also create and use our own functions. 

This lesson will introduce functions in Python.

What is Data Science

Python Basics

Handling Tabular Data in Python

Data Cleaning

Exploratory Data Analysis

Statistical Inference

Predictive Models

Machine Learning

Functions

Function