What is ICDS? : the class part
Published: 2023-01-21 14:42:04

### ICDS or Intro to computers and data science

Was a class I took last semester ( though I am writing and probably publishing this blog still during the first semester ), where well, we learned about computers and data science. The main reason I took this class is so that I could get 0.5 of my credits in for cs then next semester I would take intro to programming to get that other 0.5. All, in turn, to eventually be able to take AP CS.

That was sort of a ramble, let's get into the ideas/things I learned throughout the class

## The overarching ideas

There were many different ideas, topics, and lessons.

But these were the main ones:

* **Problem-Solving**: this is probably the most important topic that came from this class. We as programmers have to be curious, and look at a problem and think, **how can I fix it?** or **how can a automate this part of my life?** I believe that if you don't have an open, problem-solving mind, you can’t understand and appreciate programming ( or get through ICDS ).
    
* **How to write a good survey question**: With google forms, we learned just how ***badly*** we were **writing survey questions**. People would be adding bias, or having leading questions that supported only one side.
    

```plaintext
Instead of: How happy were you with this program?
you would say 
What was your experience with this program
```

* We learned that we have to prevent the use of double-barrel questions, where we ask multiple questions at once.
    

```plaintext
Should I do more productivity blogs and more coding blogs?
Yes
No
```

* We should simplify, be unbiased, and make our questions easily understandable so we can get actually useful answers.
    
* **How to create Good Data visualizations**: Data Visualizations are very important when presenting data. Many people seem to get data visualizations wrong.
    
* **For example: which one looks better**:
    

![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/ajl301oo8ddgg8d656zj.png)

![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/1rk3e8r05m5cfrvycdk1.png)
    
* You might be thinking, why would people do this? Well even small things like not having a title or a axis title can ruin the understanding and clarity of a graph.
    
* **Really, this is the best one:**
    
![Image description](https://dev-to-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/articles/c03jhvbxfirkwda6z37w.png)

* Programming Jargon: With the programming part of the class, I didn't think I would learn that much, as I have already learned python and various other programming languages, and was already somewhat intermediate in those languages. But then things like modules and assignment tokens, and the reasons we use these types of operators ... a lot of more technical terms I never knew about. I feel like it's something all programmers should learn for the field (Don't quote me on this, remember I am a teen ).
    

# Okay that's all

There will be a part two where I go into the various projects, probably next Saturday.

If you want an audio version just click [here](https://ota.hashnode.dev/what-is-icds-the-class-part) and it will send you to my hashnode version of this blog ( or don't you might be reading on hashnode already )

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bye ( I am slightly sick rn :( ).