Every computer science curriculum in the world includes a course on data structures and algorithms. Data structures are that important; they improve our quality of life and even save lives on a regular basis. Many multi-million and several multi-billion dollar companies have been built around data structures.

How can this be? If we stop to think about it, we realize that we interact with data structures constantly.

1. Open a file: File system data structures are used to locate the parts of that file on disk so they can be retrieved.
2. Look up a contact on your phone: A data structure is used to look up a phone number in your contact list based on partial information even before you finish dialing/typing.
3. Log in to your favourite social network: The network servers use your login information to look up your account information.

This list goes on and on.

This class provides a quick introduction to the concept of data structures to the beginner programmer. In most cases it is suitable for high school students.

This work contains code and/or text from opendatastructures.org.