To extract a single character from a string, refer to the character using its index. For example,
the following code extracts the first character from a string (and then overwrites the string):
value = value[0]
It is important to remember that, in Python, indexing starts at 0, not 1. The first character of a string is index 0,
the second character is index 1, and so on.
The simple script above is useful for converting 'MALE' and 'FEMALE' to 'M' and 'F', respectively.