Algorithms and Data Structures

In this 6-hour Track, you'll learn the basics of two of the fundamental topics in computer science - algorithms and data structures. With increasing frequency algorithms are starting to shape our lives in many ways - from the products recommended to us, to the friends we interact with on social media, to even important social issues like policing, privacy and healthcare.

To start off the Track, you'll take our Introduction to Algorithms course. This course covers what algorithms are, how they work, and where they can be found.

Next, you'll work through an Introduction to Data Structures course. You're going to learn about two introductory data structures - arrays and linked lists. You'll look at common operations and how the runtimes of these operations affect our everyday code.

For the rest of the course, you're going to bring your knowledge of algorithms and data structures together to solve the problem of sorting data using the merge sort algorithm.

Finally, you'll take an algorithms course on sorting and searching. This course will look at algorithms in two categories: sorting and searching. You'll implement well-known sorting algorithms like selection sort, quicksort, and merge sort. You'll also learn basic search algorithms like sequential search and binary search.

By the end of this Track you will understand what algorithms and data structures are, how they are measured and evaluated, and how they are used to solve problems. Let's dive in!