Useful Coding Skills
While it is not a necessity to know a ton about coding, it is very helpful. Not only that, but it helps make your work more reproducible. It also doesn’t hurt that this skillset translates to many other studies/lines of work.
R
R is made for statistics and was designed to be used by people with little/no coding experience(although it does not always feel that way). It is probably the most commonly used language in the field and is essential to know to do many statistical analyses.
- Rutgers Newark’s PSYCH596: This is the same course that was mentioned on the statistics module. It is a stellar course that will teach you how to use R effectively for all of your statistical needs in research.
- Harvard Intro to Statistics with R: This is a good crash course on R. You don’t need to go beyond module 26 (stop before Machine Learning). Do not just gloss over the data visualization part of the course - making figures can sometimes be half the battle.
Python
Like every job, you do not need to know python, but also like every other job it can make your life a lot easier. Python can be very useful for statistics, data manipulation, data analyses, and even plotting brain data.
- University of Helsinki Course: This is designed for people who are brand new to programming and want to learn python. There is both lecture recordings and slides. I have not done it personally, but have heard good things about it(or just saw a few people recommend it on Reddit)
- Harvard CS50: Introduction to Programming with Python: Same idea as the other course, but now, from Harvard.
MATLAB
Only learn about this if your school gives you a license, otherwise it is not worth the money when there are free resources that are equal if not better. If your school does provide a license, in my opinion, this is the easiest to learn for someone with no experience coding since it is the most like spoken English. It also has many useful tools for everything like Python does. There are also many GUI-based programs that rely on MATLAB. When doing this, you will most likely end up scripting your data which is where it is very helpful to have some MATLAB knowledge.
- MATLAB for Neuroimagers: This tutorial gives you just what you need to be able to use MATLAB for some of the neuroimaging programs that rely on it
- MATLAB Onramp: This is for those of you who want to go above and beyond. This course will give you a