pandas Foundations

Overview

Learn how to use the industry-standard pandas library to import, build, and manipulate DataFrames.

pandas DataFrames are the most widely used in-memory representation of complex data collections within Python. Whether in finance, a scientific field, or data science, familiarity with pandas is essential. This course teaches you to work with real-world datasets containing both string and numeric data, often structured around time series. You will learn powerful analysis, selection, and visualization techniques in this course.

Syllabus

Data ingestion & inspection
-In this chapter, you will be introduced to pandas DataFrames. You will use pandas to import and inspect a variety of datasets, ranging from population data obtained from the World Bank to monthly stock data obtained via Yahoo Finance. You will also practice building DataFrames from scratch and become familiar with the intrinsic data visualization capabilities of pandas.

Exploratory data analysis
-Now that you’ve learned how to ingest and inspect your data, you will next learn how to explore it visually and quantitatively. This process, known as exploratory data analysis (EDA), is a crucial component of any data science project. pandas has powerful methods that help with statistical and visual EDA. In this chapter, you will learn how and when to apply these techniques.

Time series in pandas
-In this chapter, you will learn how to manipulate and visualize time series data using pandas. You will become familiar with concepts such as upsampling, downsampling, and interpolation. You will practice using method chaining to efficiently filter your data and perform time series analyses. From stock prices to flight timings, time series data can be found in a wide variety of domains, and being able to effectively work with it is an invaluable skill.

Case Study - Sunlight in Austin
-Working with real-world weather and climate data, this chapter will allow you to apply all of the skills you have acquired in this course. You will use pandas to manipulate the data into a usable form for analysis and systematically explore it using the techniques you’ve learned.