Some basic programming background, be it C/C++, Fortran, matlab, mathematica, ..., (enough to understand the logic of programming, control statements, basic data structures, etc.) is assumed.

This is a 1-credit class. The primary method of evaluation is class participation.

To make the most of this class, you should have python 3.x installed on a laptop that you can bring to the seminar. On Linux machines, you can get python and the needed libraries through your package manager. For Mac and Windows, you might want to consider the free distributions provided by Enthought Canopy or Anaconda. These both install everything you need.