Programming Boot Camp: Python Web Crawling Course

Programming Boot Camp was held for the students who need reinforcements about basic studies of statistics and analysis.

Hosted by Korea University Business School (KUBS) and supervised by Center for Digital Transformation & Business (hereinafter CDTB), the Programming Boot Camp was held from August 3rd (Mon) to 7th (Fri) at Hyundai Motor Hall both. This Boot Camp was a 'Python Web Crawling Course' which focused on the practical use of Python grammar and arithmetic learning. CDTB took pre-applications for the camp, and among them, faculty members and MS/PhD students were given an option to participate either online or offline, and other undergraduate, MBA students and staff members were able to participate only online in order to cope with COVID-19.

The course lasted for a total of 15 hours from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 a.m. every day from Monday to Friday. Lectures on Python basic grammar were given in the first period, and Web Crawling practice was conducted using websites and data in the second period. Since the Boot Camp was started as part of a combination of technology and management in line with the digital transformation era, this course was also aimed at making it easier for students not majoring in computer science to utilize data.

In the first day, Professor Baeho Kim (Associate Dean for Research) gave an introduction about the lecturer and welcoming greeting. He said, "I would like to thank Joon-kyu Park, the CEO of D'sight (Company Programmed Education Institution) for taking the time to give a special lecture despite of his busy schedule." He also added, "I hope that this will be a good opportunity to learn about Python Web Crawling for more than 150 online participants as well as graduate school students who attend this course offline."

Joon-kyu Park, the CEO of D’sight, who gave the lecture for Boot Camp

In the first class on Monday, the lecture was composed of introducing factors to use Python (△integer △float △str) and describing two types out of the four data structures of Python (△List and △Dictionary). In the second class, the lecture was held on the basics of web crawling using the Daum (daum.net) search engine. And students learned about split, replace, format, and append etc. in the first class on Tuesday, and studied how to save the data collected through web crawling by categorize on the Excel program and how to control web pages using the Selenium in the second class.

In the first class on Wednesday, students made a simple number game using the random function and the 'while' phrase, and utilized the function def. In the second period, they practiced web crawling through the Selenium and various ways of making data collected into a combined data. On Thursday's first class, classes on how to combine multiple data and calculate the total and average of numerical data were conducted. In the second class, time for individual practice and questions was provided.

In the last course on Friday, students learned about organizing multiple data in a table and arranging numerical data by ascending and descending. And how to utilize Open API was also practiced with analyzing actual data and making graphs as they want to describe. The lecturer, Joon-kyu Park, said, "I hope you continue to use what you have learned for the last five days," and ended the lecture by adding "Please make effective use of Naver cafe 'JK’s IT Study' for questions and supplementary learning."

The five-day 'Python Web Crawling Course' attracted a lot of interests from students. The average daily attendance was 181 people (an average of 147 online and 34 offline), with active participation through not only offline classrooms but also online chatting rooms. This shows that members of KUBS have high academic passion towards the use of data in the era of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. In the future, KUBS CDTB will continue to hold the Boot Camp using vacation periods.