Very poor course, badly taught and terrible value for money. The lessons are brief beyond any form of reasonableness, the teacher seems completely unconnected with his students. There is no detail at all and no logical progression. I took and passed this course with a view to doing the specialisation but I'm not going to waste any more money on University of Michigan courses. I've found similar courses on other platforms which cover the same material. The assignments were awful, in some cases they covered material to be presented the following week, in others the questions were wrongly stated and did not match the output from the machine grading. The machine grading itself gave you no clue as to where you went wrong. I'm not talking about the odd question here or there, I'm talking about consistently throughout every assignment. I don't normally, in fact ever, leave bad reviews, I usually just chalk it up to experience and move on but in this case, the course was so bad, I had to say something. I've done two other courses on Coursera with Rice University and the difference to this course is huge, while I would wholeheartedly recommend the Rice Intro to Python courses, Don't do this course, it is not coherently presented or graded. The mentors in the forum tried their best but even they had to admit the grading system was riddled with errors. Absolute rubbish, avoid and spend your money elsewhere.

I have just completed this course. I have learned quite a bit about the pandas library and that has nothing to do with this course.

The lectures seemed to be scripted; and extremely condensed. At best, they can be used as a sparse reference manual for some undefined subset of the pandas library.

The assignment 4 instructions encourage googling things. Basically "go forth and figure it out on your own" ... why would I need a full course for that piece of advice?

The autograder seems to forbid the usage of certain lines of code in Assignment 4. It will reject your answer and give you no feedback whatsoever with respect to the reasons why your answer was rejected.

As well, it has inconsistencies that will cost you time. The question on the recession_start() function will be graded as correct if recession_start() outputs a certain value, say x. Yet, in another question recession_start() is expected to output some other value y. Go figure. Not even a warning about it.

So, to sum up the salient points:

1. Autograder has holes.

2.Extremely condensed scripted lectures and sparsely sprinkled with practical advice.

3. Useful for letting you know that pandas exist.

Disappointing.

This course is poorly done, and I'm sorry but in no way close to an intermediate level. Even knowing a fair amount of python, I struggled with learning from this course. I find it ironic that the teacher specializes in education and mostly sits in a chair and speaks code at you. There are very few visual aids to help.

Furthermore, individual topics are not broken down well, showing you how to develop a mastery over the fundamental data objects like a data frame before moving on to the next. Code that is demonstrated is typed out unreasonably fast, and very few examples are done on how to properly access the elements in different ways. The video where the grad student/post doc spits out code 3 lines a minutes made me laugh at how ridiculous it was as if it were an explanation.

I ended up very frustrated with this course, and I'm not convinced it's all me or my inability to learn. I suggest learning data science in python from another site, I'm already finding a different class much better and more understandable. Your mileage will obviously vary.

A very solemn warning for those working professionals who wish to add this valuable skill or change career, which is so in my case, DON'T spend time on this course! The problem comes from a very error-prone auto-grader system and an outdated pandas library used by this course.

I understand the ability to research your solution in the absence of guidance is a valuable skill, which is what the course instructors claim. However, setting the student up with an outdated library where the student not only has to figure out how to search for their solution but navigate different library versions is just mean and irresponsible.

If you are planning to be a programmer, I do see the value of grinding this skill out of you. But if you are a domain expert that wants to learn "Applied Data Science" which is what this course is supposed to be for. I do not see the value of dropping the student in the deep end and having them figure out version updates and learn outdated syntax.

Our time is valuable, go learn from people who respect your time. I will.

Total disaster. I payed 315euro for this course. Course started on 24/10/2016. I faced with technical difficulties till this weekend. I reported this problem already many times.. Finally this weekend the Jupiter notebook worked and I started the first assignment. I spent many hours but still couldn't get solve the assignment. I read discussions, write post.. Searched on Google.. Read lots of document. I still couldn't get what the correct answer is the assignment wants. I realized that it is impossible to pass this exam. In the lectures they don't mention anything which will help you to solve this time consuming assignment by the way.. After having this terrible course experience this weekend, today (14/11/2016) I decided to apply for refund. But guess what I says 14 days have passed so I cannot get refund!!!! Now I payyed 315 euro for nothing but disappointment!!!!

Anything but 'Pandorable'.

My first programming class was 'Python for Everybody' by Dr. Chuck. It was perfect for a novice like me. Chuck was tough, but fair. I then moved on to this class. 'Intro to Data Science in Python' is the complete opposite of everything you'd want in a so called 'intro' class. Brooksy is impossible - no Dr. Chuck. He plows through course material like he's got somewhere to be causing you to re-watch each of his lectures multiple times. Proceeding to the assignments you immediately realize they aren't related in the slightest to the lectures you just consumed. This forces you to consult google, github, stackoverflow, your peers, and anyone else with an extensive programming background. That's all fine and dandy for, say, an advanced or intermediate class, but keep in mind, this is supposed to be an INTRO class...Good luck...

besides the major technical issues and lack of information before the postponed start of the course and minor technical issues, the way of teaching is well adapted to on-site classes where you can sit in study groups solving the problems together; the given examples have partly little relevance and do not help to solve the assignments and according to the staff the best way to solve assignments is by using google (or stackoverflow or whatever) - really?! somehow it seems they just took an on-site course, played with some fancy technical solutions and call it now a MOOC... they seem not really aware of the fact that on-site teaching and MOOCs require completely different types of pedagogic methods

amazing how the same university can offer both the best MOOC (Dr. Chuck's) and one of the worst (this one)

1)Auto grading for assignments worked on and off (mostly off). I spent far more time for the auto grading than the time I spent for actually doing the assignments and learning stuff. I considered quitting after the first week and had to really force myself to go on.

2) This course requires Python experience. This should be made more clear in the course description. I struggled a lot because I lacked Python experience.

3) The instructors have pacing issues - especially the teaching assistant. They rush the important points.

4) I think the difficulty level of the quizes and assignments is not encouraging learning. I considered quitting after the first week. I'd have easier and more motivating earlier quizes/assignments; then build up on them.

Huge disappointment - the content is quite complex, however it is explained only with few videos at very high speed. The videos are not quite interactive. It could be more video hours on explanations and more in-video questions, just to check, whether the person got the concept step-by-step or not. But instead, this course is just few hours of video and the biggest part is based on the person to read the referenced books. Assignments are completely different topic. Very poor explanations of questions (discussion forums are actually full of questions that show, that question was poorly written).

After Chuck's Programming for Everybody, this course is just killing the mood.

This course could be really good, but it isn't. This is a "how to use Pandas with frustrating data-sets".

This course is just frustrating for students and mentors alike. I'm not sure why they're sticking to these confusing questions and assignments. I finished it out of sunk cost fallacy.

I really think with a little reworking (focusing less on pandas and not providing raw-dirty data, talking more about statistical method analysis), this course could be piles more incredible, and the mentors/staff would spend a lot less time answering questions on the lack of clarity on the assignments.

I'd recommend to find alternatives rather than do this course for now.

Lectures are useless. The assignments are good but the skill level of the material covered in lecture is like learning to crawl, and then you are supposed to be able to jump and dance when it gets to the assignment. Suggestions to bridge the gap are to look at Stack Overflow and various free tutorial sites, but that reduces the class to a packet of problem sets that I could get online for free. Not wasting any more time on this course. Severely disappointed in Coursera. I thought I could trust the content here but apparently they are satisfied releasing stuff that doesn't help at all.

Worse course ever. Materials don't provide enough information for performing assignments. Explanation is very short, general and isn't clear. Actually the course doesn't explain almost anything in Pandas structure, functions and approaches. As a software engineer I'm capable of solving complex problems. But here it's not about solving problems, it's about self studying and surfing Internet obtaining knowledge. What the course for?

Wrong column names, mistakes in formulas... Why the quality is so low?

I'm really disappointed spending time for it. Have to cancel it on the second week.

The content of the course is adequate to python users with a beginner-intermediate level, but lectures are fast-paced and do not seem to be focused on the student. Instructors just comment functions and methods characteristics as if they were reading it from Pandas documentation. Before this course I did not have any Python knowledge apart from the specialization programme Python for Everybody from the University of Michigan, which was much more oriented to beginner students. I recommend some more experience to take this course.

This course is heavily dependent on your ability to google methods and techniques because the lectures do not come close to preparing you for the assignments. The videos simply show you what happens when you type certain code into the interpreter and do not go into detail of how it works because they figure stackoverflow already does it. This is probably a course more for someone who already knows the material and needs a refresher vs someone who is trying to learn it all for the first time. Good luck

Lecturer just regurgitates code out loud (completely worthless). You can't get answers back without paying for the course (fine but it would have been nice to mention that up front in the audit) so you get little feedback as you might want it.

Many of the questions/code is impossible using only the python described in the course. I wanted to take this as a python refresher and it was a complete waste of time. The subject matter is perfect! But execution is abysmal.

The background for the lectures was really distracting. You shouldn't have people in the background ever.

The lectures didn't provide the information needed to solve the assignments and the answers aren't given after the assignment is due. So the course doesn't really teach much by itself. You need to do a lot of extra googling on top of the lectures. In that case, you may as well do your own projects for free rather than $40/mo for inadequate lectures.

I find it outrageous that in Week 4 instead of practicing python and statistics I have to spend a lot of time learning very US and sport-specific information which is absolutely useless and I am never going to need it. The same is valid I believe for the rest of the world. The coursera platform was not intended exclusively for US and Canada students? Or for people who do not have full-time jobs and a family in addition to the need to learn python?

No or least support.

Course Quality is great but problems with grader will left you with wasting your expensive time.

Assignments are good but intend to go wayyy more beyond the scope and to learn from online materials though other sites.

Grading system is not easy. You have the right answer but you'll need to waist hours to produce specific string for your grader to be satisfied.

This i not an elegant learning process at all.

Horrible course. The instructor is reading the course from a prompter. '95% of the time, you see the instructor reading from the prompter, and two people working in the background. When they actually show the code the instructor is talking about, it goes so fast that it's impossible to read the screen. The instructor provides no motivation or background to what he says. He just rattles off the words in a uni

Instructor gives minimal examples and says "go look on stack overflow". Then he proceeds to assign problems that don't really cover what the slides, lectures, or examples were on. If I all I was trying to do was just read some docs and look on stack overflow I wouldn't need to take this course now would I?

Poorly translated and cryptic instructions for assembling furniture are better than what you get here.

The assignment is much more harder than what I learnt through these videos. I know the professor want us to learn more by searching on Google, but it really took me a lot of time to find the answer for every assignment! I attend this course only because I want to learn Python easier than self-learning, but this course make it become much harder for me and I even think of not futher my study in this area.

I am an engineer and I use matlab and stata for data analysis and currently taking Machine Learning course by Stanford which is fabulous. I did not like this course for the following reasons:

1- bad course design structure

2- so confusing and inappropriate sequence

3- super fast without providing any intuition

4- no fundamental explanation

5- course could be longer and spend enough time in each subject

Whilst the course material was great, the actual program is very poorly managed. The assignments and lecture notes are not kept up-to-date meaning you must waste hours in the forums trying to figure out why your assignments are not being graded correctly or why your code is outdated.

Not impressed, would definitely not recommend. I ended up having to just teach the material to myself

This course is no good.

Unable to run the assignments at my comfort. Half the time there is some issue in submitting the code in jupyter and with hard pressed timelines at work this does not take me anywhere. As a data scientist with little programming background, it is difficult to enable our journey with this course.

Sorry to say. This is a big disappointment for me.

This is not a course. The videos and resources provided do not provide sufficient insight to properly learning Data Science or even getting through the assignments. Content and assignments have rarely anything in common. I would have to spend more than 12 hours to solve one of the assignments. Do not recommend, you are better off leaning out of google.