University of California San Diego

Data Structures

Neil Rhodes
Daniel M Kane
Michael Levin

Instructors: Neil Rhodes

284,069 already enrolled

Included with Coursera Plus

Gain insight into a topic and learn the fundamentals.
4.6

(5,459 reviews)

Intermediate level

Recommended experience

Flexible schedule
Approx. 22 hours
Learn at your own pace
93%
Most learners liked this course
Gain insight into a topic and learn the fundamentals.
4.6

(5,459 reviews)

Intermediate level

Recommended experience

Flexible schedule
Approx. 22 hours
Learn at your own pace
93%
Most learners liked this course

Details to know

Shareable certificate

Add to your LinkedIn profile

Assessments

9 assignments

Taught in English

See how employees at top companies are mastering in-demand skills

Placeholder

Build your subject-matter expertise

This course is part of the Data Structures and Algorithms Specialization
When you enroll in this course, you'll also be enrolled in this Specialization.
  • Learn new concepts from industry experts
  • Gain a foundational understanding of a subject or tool
  • Develop job-relevant skills with hands-on projects
  • Earn a shareable career certificate
Placeholder
Placeholder

Earn a career certificate

Add this credential to your LinkedIn profile, resume, or CV

Share it on social media and in your performance review

Placeholder

There are 6 modules in this course

In this module, you will learn about the basic data structures used throughout the rest of this course. We start this module by looking in detail at the fundamental building blocks: arrays and linked lists. From there, we build up two important data structures: stacks and queues. Next, we look at trees: examples of how they’re used in Computer Science, how they’re implemented, and the various ways they can be traversed. Once you’ve completed this module, you will be able to implement any of these data structures, as well as have a solid understanding of the costs of the operations, as well as the tradeoffs involved in using each data structure.

What's included

7 videos7 readings1 assignment1 programming assignment

In this module, we discuss Dynamic Arrays: a way of using arrays when it is unknown ahead-of-time how many elements will be needed. Here, we also discuss amortized analysis: a method of determining the amortized cost of an operation over a sequence of operations. Amortized analysis is very often used to analyse performance of algorithms when the straightforward analysis produces unsatisfactory results, but amortized analysis helps to show that the algorithm is actually efficient. It is used both for Dynamic Arrays analysis and will also be used in the end of this course to analyze Splay trees.

What's included

5 videos1 reading1 assignment

We start this module by considering priority queues which are used to efficiently schedule jobs, either in the context of a computer operating system or in real life, to sort huge files, which is the most important building block for any Big Data processing algorithm, and to efficiently compute shortest paths in graphs, which is a topic we will cover in our next course. For this reason, priority queues have built-in implementations in many programming languages, including C++, Java, and Python. We will see that these implementations are based on a beautiful idea of storing a complete binary tree in an array that allows to implement all priority queue methods in just few lines of code. We will then switch to disjoint sets data structure that is used, for example, in dynamic graph connectivity and image processing. We will see again how simple and natural ideas lead to an implementation that is both easy to code and very efficient. By completing this module, you will be able to implement both these data structures efficiently from scratch.

What's included

15 videos6 readings3 assignments1 programming assignment1 plugin

In this module you will learn about very powerful and widely used technique called hashing. Its applications include implementation of programming languages, file systems, pattern search, distributed key-value storage and many more. You will learn how to implement data structures to store and modify sets of objects and mappings from one type of objects to another one. You will see that naive implementations either consume huge amount of memory or are slow, and then you will learn to implement hash tables that use linear memory and work in O(1) on average! In the end, you will learn how hash functions are used in modern disrtibuted systems and how they are used to optimize storage of services like Dropbox, Google Drive and Yandex Disk!

What's included

20 videos4 readings2 assignments1 programming assignment

In this module we study binary search trees, which are a data structure for doing searches on dynamically changing ordered sets. You will learn about many of the difficulties in accomplishing this task and the ways in which we can overcome them. In order to do this you will need to learn the basic structure of binary search trees, how to insert and delete without destroying this structure, and how to ensure that the tree remains balanced.

What's included

7 videos2 readings1 assignment

In this module we continue studying binary search trees. We study a few non-trivial applications. We then study the new kind of balanced search trees - Splay Trees. They adapt to the queries dynamically and are optimal in many ways.

What's included

4 videos2 readings1 assignment1 programming assignment

Instructors

Instructor ratings
4.5 (700 ratings)
Neil Rhodes
University of California San Diego
7 Courses703,696 learners
Daniel M Kane
University of California San Diego
5 Courses686,079 learners
Michael Levin
University of California San Diego
7 Courses724,355 learners

Offered by

Recommended if you're interested in Algorithms

Why people choose Coursera for their career

Felipe M.
Learner since 2018
"To be able to take courses at my own pace and rhythm has been an amazing experience. I can learn whenever it fits my schedule and mood."
Jennifer J.
Learner since 2020
"I directly applied the concepts and skills I learned from my courses to an exciting new project at work."
Larry W.
Learner since 2021
"When I need courses on topics that my university doesn't offer, Coursera is one of the best places to go."
Chaitanya A.
"Learning isn't just about being better at your job: it's so much more than that. Coursera allows me to learn without limits."

Learner reviews

Showing 3 of 5459

4.6

5,459 reviews

  • 5 stars

    73.51%

  • 4 stars

    20.74%

  • 3 stars

    3.60%

  • 2 stars

    0.73%

  • 1 star

    1.40%

AS
5

Reviewed on Nov 22, 2019

AD
5

Reviewed on Feb 7, 2020

YL
4

Reviewed on Sep 26, 2020

New to Algorithms? Start here.

Placeholder

Open new doors with Coursera Plus

Unlimited access to 7,000+ world-class courses, hands-on projects, and job-ready certificate programs - all included in your subscription

Advance your career with an online degree

Earn a degree from world-class universities - 100% online

Join over 3,400 global companies that choose Coursera for Business

Upskill your employees to excel in the digital economy

Frequently asked questions