Matlab is fairly easy to work with (initially) and is great when learning a new concept, instead of learning that plus arbitrary syntax of the tool.

It isn't particularly fast though, and the simplicity quickly becomes an obstacle when solving a real problem.

Also did an algorithms in machine learning course in matlab

It’s a great language choice for it

It weeded out the script kiddies who incorrectly signed up wanting a Tensorflow or PyTorch course

It’s a fairly bland and slow but usable language for the task

Shits me off to no end a lot of engineering courses moreorless indoctrinate their students into using it unconditionally, though

Octave exists but is a relative pain to use

It's still a pain spending time learning matlab syntax/semantics when you could just, idk, use C or Haskell instead