Week 1 plan, lab and assignment

Phase 0 · Foundations · ⏱ 12–15 hrs · 🆓 Free preview week

Why this matters

90% of an AI engineer's daily work is Python. This week you set up a professional workspace and write your first real programs.

By the end of this week you can:

Use the terminal, VS Code, Git and GitHub confidently
Create isolated environments with uv (or venv)
Write Python with variables, types, conditionals, loops, functions, lists, and dicts
Push a working project to GitHub with a README

Every day starts with reading. The written lessons teach everything; there are no videos.

Day	Read	Topic	Activity
1	Lesson 1.1	Setup	Install Python 3.12+, VS Code (+ Python, Ruff extensions), Git; create a GitHub account; `uv init`
2	Lessons 1.2–1.3	Terminal & Git	`cd/ls/mkdir`, `git init/add/commit/push`, branches, `.gitignore`
3	Lesson 1.4	Python basics	Variables, `int/float/str/bool`, input/output, f-strings, operators
4	Lesson 1.5	Control flow	`if/elif/else`, `for`, `while`, `range`, `break/continue`
5	Lessons 1.6–1.7	Functions & collections	`def`, args/kwargs, return values, lists, tuples, dicts, sets
6	Lesson 1.8 + lab walkthrough	Lab	Build the CLI expense tracker (below)
7	"Check your understanding"	Review	Quiz + push to GitHub + post your progress on LinkedIn (#ZeroToHiredAI)

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