MATH 223 MATLAB Onboarding

Use of MATLAB in this course

We will use MATLAB throughout the course to create visualizations and to solve complex problems.  MATLAB stands for "Matrix Laboratory." MATLAB is a computational software program used widely in several areas of research in mathematics,  science and engineering. It works efficiently with large data and is a powerful numerical solver. It allows users to quickly produce, analyze, and edit data and create quality graphics. 

Students do not need any previous experience with MATLAB or programming in general. Middlebury has a campus license, so MATLAB is free for all students.  There will be a workshop scheduled early in the semester but you can easily begin to learn on your own.

MATLAB Onboarding Instructions (complete before workshop)

Middlebury has a campus-wide site license which allows everyone (faculty, students, staff) to download a copy of MATLAB onto their computers and use it for teaching and research. This means that one can use MATLAB without a VPN connection. We also now have access to several useful toolboxes that you can select upon installation.

MATLAB Onboarding Steps

  1. Create a MathWorks Account: Go to Middlebury College MATLAB Portal, and create a MathWorks account with your Middlebury email (or sign in if you already have one).


  2. Download MATLAB to your personal machine from the MathWorks site. I recommend downloading the software if you have the space (about 10GB to download, 3GB for MATLAB only -- no toolboxes).  For this class, you will need the standard MATLAB download plus the symbolic math toolbox (but you are welcome to download other toolboxes, just be mindful of the space on your machine!). Here are the system requirements for download.

This download will take a while.  Make sure you have a strong wifi signal.  If possible, use an ethernet connection.


  1. If unable to download MATLAB because of space issues, then you can use a browser-based version of MATLAB called MATLAB Online (Links to an external site.). To find this, log-in to Mathworks  (Links to an external site.), click on “My Account” and you’ll see “MATLAB Online” on the left-hand side of the screen. This will open MATLAB in your browser. It works the same way as the downloaded software, but is a bit slower and you’ll have to save your files to MATLAB Drive (similar to Google Drive or Dropbox, but owned by MathWorks).


  2. Watch Getting Started With MATLAB video (10 minutes).  Download the code for the video and give it a try on your machine!

MATLAB is also available in some computing labs on campus. See list for labs with MATLAB on this page.

Resources

MATLAB is very well documented.  MathWorks, the creator of MATLAB, maintains a vast Help Center with plenty of examples and tutorials to help you get started.  Here are a few links that might prove useful for this course:

Recommended Tutorials for students new to MATLAB

MATLAB offers many interactive tutorials.  If you are new to using MATLAB, then these are the tutorials that I would recommend if you are interested in learning more (we will learn more as a class throughout the semester).