Department of Mathematics

Setting up a MathWorks account and installing MATLAB

To participate in the Labs portion of this course, you need to set-up a MathWorks account. (Since Michigan State University has an institutional license, this should be at absolutely no charge to you.) The process is fairly simple:

  1. First, visit the MSU-licensing page on MathWorks.
  2. You will click the "Sign-in to get Started" button, this button will raise the MSU log-in page, and you will need to log-in using your MSU NetID and Password. For more information concerning your NetID, please visit the MSU NetID webpage.
  3. This should return you to a screen asking you to associate the institutional license to a MathWorks account. If you have previously used MATLAB before, you can log-in using your existing MathWorks account. Otherwise please click on "Create a MathWorks Account" and follow the instructions there.
  4. Once your account is created, the MSU institutional license will be automatically applied to it. Make sure to remember / write down your MathWorks account information.
  5. With the MathWorks Account information, you should be able to log-in to MATLAB Online. You will be able to complete the Lab assignments with MATLAB Online.
  6. (Optional, but recommended) Once you have a MathWorks Account set up, you can download MATLAB according to the type of computer you have (Windows, Mac, or Linux). A MATLAB installation on recent (bought in the past 3 years) laptop typically runs faster than the online version; so if you have enough disk space we do recommend the installation.
  7. When the download completes, you can begin the installation process following the steps on MathWorks' webpage.
    Important information: in Step 8 of MathWorks' installation guide, you are asked to "Specify Products to Install". For this class, you only need to install the base MATLAB product which will take approximate 1 GB of harddisk space. You can feel free to de-select all the other Toolboxes and Toolkits (the full installation can take more than 10 GB).
    Important information: since you have already created a MathWorks account, you can use that to log-in in Step 5 of MathWorks' installation guide; in Step 7 you will want to select the MSU institutional license which should be listed in the dialog box.

Help With MATLAB

Documents

  • The MATLAB Cheatsheet is a wonderful resource that has many of the common commands you will need to understand and use while doing the labs
  • Lab 0 is an introduction to MATLAB. It is not worth course points

Technical Support

We are very fortunate this semester to have Chris Stclair helping as our "Lead TA". He made all the pre and post lab videos over the semester and is extremely familiar with MATLAB. If you have any technical issues please feel try your best to find the answer on your own but if you are still having issues you can email Craig for help.