Computing 101 Workshop – Winter 2025

Overview

This 3-day workshop will cover some of the common tools used in open source development. It is targeted at novice users. The workshop will be broken into two parts:

  1. Computing basics (day 1) – Topics covered: basic terminal usage, UNIX, git, and GitHub.
  2. Intro to R (days 2 & 3) – Topics covered:  variables, control flow, function, loops, data visualization, data cleaning, and data reports.

The format will be a mixture of lectures and labs. Each day will consist of a morning and afternoon session, each lasting approximately two hours. See below for a more detailed schedule. The workshop will be in-person only. Workshop materials will be made available online afterward.

🗓️ Dates

Part 1 (Computing basics): Monday January 20, 2025

Part 2 (Intro to R): Thursday January 23 & Friday January 24, 2025

🎯 Location

Jan 20 and 23: Hinds Hall 347
Jan 24: Hinds Hall 111

📋 Registration

If you would like to register for the workshop, please fill out this form: https://forms.gle/tPoa245UUUggrcwp7.

Registration is open to all Syracuse University and SUNY ESF students, staff, and faculty. There is no fee, but space is limited, so sign up soon.

💻 Prerequisites

The workshop will be cross-disciplinary and no prior programming experience is needed. You will need to bring your own computer. Attendees should install the following software before the workshop:

  • R
  • RStudio
  • Git:
    • Windows Users: Install Git for Windows
    • Mac Users: Open a Terminal app and type sudo xcode-select --install then hit the <return> key. After it installs, type git --version followed by <return> to make sure git installed correctly.
    • Linux Users (Ubuntu): Open a terminal and type sudo apt install git-all.

⏲ Schedule

The workshop will start at 10:00AM each day. We will also be available 9:00 – 10:00AM on Monday and Thursday to help people setup their computers for the workshop.

Day Time Location Topics covered (subject to change)
Mon. Jan. 20 9:00AM - 10:00AM Hinds 347 Setup bash (optional)
Mon. Jan. 20 10:00AM – 12:00PM Hinds 347 Part I, Computing Basics Bash, working with files/directories, and pipes
Mon. Jan. 20 1:00PM - 2:00PM Hinds 347 Setup ssh keys (optional)
Mon. Jan. 20 2:00PM - 4:00PM Hinds 347 Part I, Computing Basics git and GitHub
Thurs. Jan. 23 9:00AM - 10:00AM Hinds 336 Setup R (optional)
Thurs. Jan. 23 10:00AM - 12:00PM Hinds 347 Part II, Introduction to R R: variables, assignments, types, and functions
Thurs. Jan. 23 2:00PM - 4:00PM R: data visualization with ggplot2
Fri. Jan. 24 10:00AM - 12:00PM Hinds 111 R: data cleaning with the tidyverse
Fri. Jan. 24 2:00PM - 4:00PM R: data reports with RMarkdown

📖 Workshop materials

Materials from the workshop are available here. You can also follow along with the workshop recordings embedded below:

Introduction to the Unix Shell (materials)

git and GitHub (materials)

Introduction to R and RStudio (materials)

Plotting in R with ggplot2 (materials)

R for Data Cleaning (materials)

(Apologies, we forgot to record the first 30ish minutes)

Writing Reports with R Markdown (materials)