MATLAB was required throughout WPI, but there was no formal course to teach it, so I learned it through MathWorks seminars and plenty of trial by fire. When my student license expired after graduation, I moved my hobby work to Python and converted my MATLAB scripts along the way. At work I still use MATLAB daily to automate analysis and repetitive verification tasks.
Python
My go-to for personal projects: quick, lightweight, and flexible. The highlight is an aircraft design tool that started as a ported MATLAB script and grew into a GUI application.
MATLAB & Simulink
MATLAB was the first programming language I truly learned and kept. I leaned heavily on MathWorks' documentation, and two courses stand out:
Structural dynamics
Our professor challenged us to model how structures vibrate over time. It was the first time I used differential equations and Laplace transforms on real-world problems, and I used MATLAB to build the Bode diagrams.
A digital jet engine
For a propulsion course, I modeled a turbojet engine from the fundamental equations of mass and heat transfer, then simulated its performance across a range of operating conditions.
C
To expand my horizons beyond high-level tools, I worked through An Introduction to C and Codecademy's C course. Managing memory by hand gave me a real appreciation for everything MATLAB and Python had been quietly doing for me.