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Back to Biology Meets Programming: Bioinformatics for Beginners

Learner Reviews & Feedback for Biology Meets Programming: Bioinformatics for Beginners by University of California San Diego

4.2
stars
1,485 ratings

About the Course

Are you interested in learning how to program (in Python) within a scientific setting? This course will cover algorithms for solving various biological problems along with a handful of programming challenges helping you implement these algorithms in Python. It offers a gently-paced introduction to our Bioinformatics Specialization (https://www.coursera.org/specializations/bioinformatics), preparing learners to take the first course in the Specialization, "Finding Hidden Messages in DNA" (https://www.coursera.org/learn/dna-analysis). Each of the four weeks in the course will consist of two required components. First, an interactive textbook provides Python programming challenges that arise from real biological problems. If you haven't programmed in Python before, not to worry! We provide "Just-in-Time" exercises from the Codecademy Python track (https://www.codecademy.com/learn/python). And each page in our interactive textbook has its own discussion forum, where you can interact with other learners. Second, each week will culminate in a summary quiz. Lecture videos are also provided that accompany the material, but these videos are optional....

Top reviews

HD

Apr 17, 2016

I give this course 5 star because I did Bioinformatics I and I totally enjoy it.

This is where programming can be fun, and practical, and you'll learn some basic biology too.

What's not to love?

HL

Aug 15, 2017

I learned a lot from this difficult and time-consuming course! It covers biological concepts using Python. It made learning Python more interesting for me, since I have always loved biology.

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351 - 375 of 445 Reviews for Biology Meets Programming: Bioinformatics for Beginners

By Xiaoyu L

•

Mar 31, 2018

The content is interesting, but the staff does not provide helpful feedbacks, and I really do not like the fact they assume the test case is always right, where it might not be. Quite frustrate when struggling on one question when the code is absolutely right.

By Prashant M

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Jul 23, 2017

Further reference material needs to be added in my opinion. There can be participants from only Computer Science background and there can be students from only biology background. Hence i think reference materials could aid a participant's understanding a lot.

By Josh S

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Dec 28, 2020

This was a good course for someone with a fair amount of programming background and a biology degree. But it was difficult to follow at times and I could see how one could easily get lost. Definitely feels more of an intermediate course than a beginner one.

By Grzegorz A K

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Nov 4, 2016

Pros: a lot of programming in automated online environment.

Cons: inconsistencies in code like changing parameter order in often used functions, changing structure of some variables (arrays become dicts). This can be unneccesarily misleading.

By Clive T

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Mar 26, 2020

Disappointing lack of feedback from any course organiser (most recent response seemed to be about two years old). The biological content tailed off to become much more of course in programming for search algorithms

By Anagha R

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Dec 15, 2022

it's NOT a beginner-level course and will definitely take much more than 20 hours. They could have made it easier for beginner cos for people who haven't coded before, its REAL HARD.

otherwise, its fine

By Akinyi O

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May 19, 2020

Some background knowledge on coding is definitely needed for this course, despite the info saying none is needed. The progress expected is way too fast for an actual beginner with no coding experience.

By Barby S

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Jun 9, 2021

The course is EXCELLENT. But... It's not for beginners!!! If you don't know anything about programming, python and bioinformatics it's nearly impossible to do without help.

It was really frustrating.

By Md. S K

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May 26, 2020

This is not for beginners. You need to know more about python to complete it easily and the time limits of Stepik is not correct. It needs far more time than mentioned.

By Ajith M

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Jul 20, 2020

This course is definitely not for beginners. I was on the verge of giving up throughout the course. But once you get ahold of the concepts, it is very interesting.

By James O

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Sep 16, 2019

The course tries hard to balance programming and biology but the programming can become quite a challenge for people with little to no experience in programming.

By Sanjit R

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Dec 21, 2020

Although this course was uniquely interesting and insightful, I did feel at times that the lesson material was insufficient to fully understand a concept.

By Preethi N

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Feb 24, 2021

Although this course is possible for beginners, some of the programming problems were frustrating and a hint would have been appreciated.

By Pablo R M

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Mar 13, 2020

Not truly for beginners. If you don't have previous knowledge of Python and algorithms expect to invest a lot more than 4 hours a week

By Carolina S E

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Feb 29, 2024

Adorei a dinâmica do curso, porém o prazo de término das atividades é extremamente incoerente com a quantidade de afazeres propostos.

By Merna F E

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Sep 4, 2020

this course was very useful for me but it is very very difficult for a beginner, I was suffering from trying to understand it

By Himanshi S

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Jul 18, 2023

There were some technical issues nut the course structure was impressive, learning experience was challenging yet joyful.

By Chahat B

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Jul 26, 2020

Very difficult for no coding background people. It would be really helpful if you could describe the error in better ways

By Christopher C

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Apr 3, 2021

This course requires advanced programming skills, the first week has taken 3 weeks from me and I am still stuck.

By Osimhiarherhuo A

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Apr 28, 2020

This course although well taught does not take into account those that know nothing about programming

By Linyi Z

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Jun 21, 2017

the instructions in the stepik notes were unclear. i would say the optional lecture video was better

By Nesrine K

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Nov 16, 2020

quite difficult for a begginer we have to practice python first before starting the course

By Amarachukwu B I

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Jun 18, 2020

This course is not for beginners. It is for those with background computer knowledge

By Adnan B

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May 25, 2022

This course is so much difficult and it is definitely not the one for beginners.

By Rubén d S I

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Feb 19, 2017

Very interesting but i don't like switching e-learning platforms