Comment by thereisnospork

"Practical python" is undoubtedly useful to a biologist, but I wouldnt understate the utility of an intro to algorithms for technical but non CS majors.

'Algorithmic thinking' more or less doesn't exist in a lot of the classical disciplines with any degree of rigor, so a CS class is the only place a biologist is going to be exposed.

Specifically for utility, there is a very tight mapping between 'how do I search these strings' and 'how do I [most efficiently] design a set of experiments [searching for a a result]'. Both in the literal algorithms as well as the logical framework necessary to extend past trivial examples.