Tier 1 · Gated foundation
Data Structures & Algorithms
A five-week intensive that builds algorithmic literacy — the structures, their costs, and the judgement calls that make engineering decisions automatic.
- Duration
- 5 weeks
- Tier
- Tier 1 · Foundations
- Certificate
- WIATech Certificate in Data Structures & Algorithms
Every working engineer reaches for data structures and algorithms constantly, making the everyday judgement calls that distinguish code that holds up under load from code that gets quietly rewritten. FND 35 builds the literacy that makes those calls automatic — knowing the structures, knowing their costs, implementing the essential ones from scratch in Python, and reasoning about which one a real problem wants. By the end, a graduate can read a problem statement, choose the right structure and defend the choice without bluffing.
§ What you'll be able to do
- Read a piece of code and identify its Big-O class without running it
- Implement the foundational structures from scratch — arrays, hash tables, lists, stacks, queues, BSTs, heaps
- Choose the right structure for a problem and defend the choice in writing
- Reason about time and space complexity in the everyday vocabulary engineers use
- Apply recursion where it fits, and recognise when iteration is the right choice instead
- Traverse graphs with BFS and DFS and explain what each computes
§ What you'll cover
Algorithmic Thinking and Big-O
The shift from code that works on one input to code that holds up across all inputs, with Big-O as the language engineers use to talk about cost.
Arrays, Hash Tables, and the Two Workhorses
The two structures engineers use constantly — arrays and hash tables — understood and built from scratch at the depth beneath the syntax.
Linked Lists, Stacks, Queues, and Sequences
The sequence structures and the LIFO/FIFO discipline that turns simple containers into the engines of real systems.
Recursion, Trees, and Heaps
Recursion as a mental tool, trees as the structure it naturally fits, and heaps as the priority-queue implementation that recurs across engineering.
Search, Sort, Graphs, and Integration
The search and sort algorithm families and graphs — the structure that generalises trees — pulling the course together toward the capstone.
Capstone
The Structure-Choice Defended
The student builds a working Python program that solves a real scenario using structures they implemented from scratch, paired with a written complexity analysis defending each choice.
§ Tools you'll use
- Python 3.12+
- VS Code with the Python extension
- The Python standard library only
- Git
- Jupyter or basic plotting tools