Week 1 Notes - Course Introduction

Published

September 8, 2025

Key Concepts Learned

  • Introduction to Git/GitHub for version control, collaboration, and portfolio building
  • Role of Quarto in producing reproducible, professional reports that combine code, narrative, and outputs

Coding Techniques

  • as_tibble() to convert data frames into tibbles for better display
  • Core dplyr verbs: select(), filter(), mutate(), summarize(), group_by(), rename(), case_when()
  • Use of pipes %>% to build step-by-step workflows

Questions & Challenges

  • Still working on fully grasping the Git workflow (commit, push, pull) and how GitHub Classroom integrates with it

Connections to Policy

  • Learning GitHub workflows builds professional habits useful for collaborative policy projects in agencies and MPOs

Reflection

  • Most interesting: seeing how professional portfolios can be built from class assignments and used in future job searches
  • I’ll apply this knowledge by keeping my GitHub portfolio clean and well-documented, so it doubles as both a learning record and something I can show employers