Learning MATLAB in 2025
I've been using MATLAB for almost 30 years, man and boy. In those 30 years, not only has MATLAB itself changed a lot but how you learn it has also changed dramatically. Back in my day, we had a few lectures backed by a textbook and we were grateful. Anything deeper than that required diving into the documentation, all of which was available in printed form from the university library.
Lectures and textbooks are still available of course but here in 2025 we have many additional options as well.
MATLAB Onramp
Free, online, interactive and you don't even need to install MATLAB! If you've never programmed before, the 2 hours or so it will take you to get through the MATLAB Onramp will be time well spent. The course is a combination of videos, text, hands-on programming and automatically graded interactive quizzes. Add the certificate of completion to your LinkedIn profile to let everyone know about your new skills.
Specialized MATLAB Onramps
Most people who learn MATLAB do so because they have a more specialized end-goal in mind. Something involving Deep Learning perhaps? Maybe Image Processing, Signal Processing or building your first MATLAB app are more to your liking?
Building on what you've learned in MATLAB Onramp, these more specialized courses take you further in the direction you want to go. There are over 20 of them and the number is growing all the time. Like the base MATLAB Onramp, they are free, online, interactive, provide completion certificates and don't even require you to install MATLAB to complete them. Most of them take between 1 and 2 hours to get through.
Online Training Suite: More advanced learning paths
Onramps are a great start but there's only so much you can learn in 1-2 hours. MathWorks provides dozens more courses via the Online Training Suite, a paid-subscription based set of resources that use the same interactive technology as Onramps but go into much more detail.
The courses are split into learning paths such as Core MATLAB Skills (4 courses spread over 5.5 hours), Software Development in MATLAB (3 courses over 6 hours) or Data Analysis in MATLAB (5 courses over 7.5 hours) and go into much more depth than on-ramps.
Although online training suite is available as a paid subscription, this subscription is already included in several license types. If you are a member of a university that has a Campus Wide License, for example, then access to the Online Training Suite is already available to you at no extra charge. Just ensure that your MathWorks account is using the email address given to you by your institution.
MATLAB courses on Coursera and Edx
MathWorks and several universities offer courses on Edx and Coursera. Subjects are varied and include things like Quantitative Methods for Biology from Harvard University, Solar Energy: Integration of Photovoltaic Systems in Microgrids by TU Delft and Exploratory Data Analysis by MathWorks. Take a look to see if there is anything that appeals to you
Digital credentials
At some point in your learning career, you might want to demonstrate what you know. MathWorks provide a range of verified learning credentials at different levels such as Certified MATLAB Associate or MATLAB Professional.
MATLAB and Simulink classroom courses
MathWorks also runs regular in-person training courses. Details on which courses are available and how to enroll can be found at https://uk.mathworks.com/learn/training/classroom-courses.html
Cody: Practice problems for MATLAB coders
Many programmers will tell you that the best way to learn how to program is to dive in and use programming to solve some problems. Fine, but which problems should you choose?
This is where MATLAB Cody comes in. It contains thousands of programming challenges designed by MathWorks and members of the MATLAB community. Ranging from simple, can be solved in 30 seconds, puzzles right up to extremely complex problems that will have you tearing your hair out. You can even submit your own problems for people to try if you are so moved.
I think of Cody as 'The MATLAB gym' -- solving a few problems a week can help keep your MATLAB skills strong. There's also a community leader board but getting to the top of it will require a bit of effort! To take the number one spot would require the solution of over 5,100 problems! Beating me, however, is a rather easier prospect as I'm barely inside the top 20,000 players at the time of writing.
Copilot, Chat GPT and other AI-related friends
MATLAB Copilot: Launched alongside MATLAB R2025a, MATLAB Copilot provides AI assistance directly from within MATLAB itself. Now, MATLAB can help you learn MATLAB! Like all technologies, however, AI is not magic. You need to learn about its strengths and limitations to get the best out of it. We've got you covered with this great Coursera course: Introduction to MATLAB Copilot.
MATLAB AI Chat Playground: It's a free online AI chatbot from MathWorks that can generate and run MATLAB code, discuss MATLAB with you and generally help you learn more about MATLAB and how to use it.
Custom MATLAB GPT: You've probably used Chat GPT but did you know that there is also a custom GPT for MATLAB? The custom MATLAB GPT is the Chat GPT you know and love but also has some additional customizations especially for MATLAB users. In particular, the AI uses Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) to search the MathWorks website before formulating an answer.
AI generated quick answers in the MATLAB documentation. 'Read the documentation' is as valid a piece of advice today as it was when I was an undergraduate. MATLAB's documentation is arguably the best in the industry and now, not only can you read it all online, you can also chat with it and ask it questions!
Forums, blogs and social media
MathWorks blogs: You can learn a lot about MATLAB from blogs. Obviously, I'm going to suggest that you subscribe to The MATLAB Blog but this blog is just the tip of the MathWorks blogosphere (Is 'blogosphere' still a thing or am I showing my age). We also have blogs on MATLAB with artificial intelligence, finance, Simulink, Open source, Start-ups, Community and even from the inventor of MATLAB himself, Cleve Moler.
YouTube and Webinars: If video is more your thing, The MATLAB YouTube channel has over 500,000 subscribers and >2,700 videos, such as this one
We also have a popular MATLAB Channel in Spanish: https://www.youtube.com/c/matlabenespanol
Finally, MathWorks regularly hosts webinars on a hugely diverse range of topics. Alongside more general topics like MATAB for AI you'll find incredibly in-depth subjects such as C and C++ DevOps with GitLab, VS Code and Polyspace and Physics Informed Machine Learning with MATLAB.
Instagram, Discord, LinkedIn, GitHub, MATLAB Central and more
Engaging with MATLAB users at all levels improves your knowledge and social media is a great way to do this. MATLAB is on Instagram, LinkedIn, FaceBook and Reddit among others. We also have our own community, MATLAB Central, which has been around for over 20 years! There are discussion forums, Question and Answer Forums, Regular competitions and a File Exchange where you'll find thousands of open-source add-ons for MATLAB.
As a software company, we have an active GitHub organization as you'd expect. There's also an active Discord channel. However you prefer to connect to people, you'll find a MATLAB community waiting for you.
What resources do you use to learn more about MATLAB and Simulink?
So much for how I continue to learn MATLAB in 2025. What resources do you use and recommend? Let me know in the comments.
Comments
To leave a comment, please click here to sign in to your MathWorks Account or create a new one.