Learner Reviews & Feedback for Python for Data Science, AI & Development by IBM

we need Chinese

It's very basic

Ok not so good

For beginners

can do better

Less content

Too basic.

it is good

Too basic

Too easy

It's Ok

Shallow

great

cool

good

Generally, the course is very informative and useful.

However, the Python for Data Science and AI course is anything but helpful.

The course requires the students to open a free IBM Cloud account, which is practically impossible in my case for unknown reasons.

The IBM Cloud service is essential part of the certificate program, as it is used in most of the courses, but, however, impossible to use.

IBM Watson Studio is a tool developed for Machine Learning and a part of the IBM Cloud service and an essential part of the course, but can not be used without a cloud account...

I think the above sentence says it all.

Through threads in the forum I requested a solution for my issue, which many other seemed to have. I received a few answers to my inquiry, suggesting a few workarounds like using a non-generic e-mail or at least a GMail, changing my network settings and so on.

None of them seemed to work.

The solution that was suggested at the end was to download the file from a suggested link, run the code locally and upload the result to GitHub...

Seriously?!... o.0

A few e-mails sent to IBM Cloud support remained unanswered.

The saga above, as well as the lack of exercises, non-working code in the lectures and LAB really made me question my choice of certificate...

The course does not contain much more information than the one you will find in the book by Murtaza Haider, parts of which are included in the reading sections of the course. If you are wondering if it is better to spend $35 each month on Coursera, or to buy the book for $20 and learn the same stuff... Well, I think you have your answer.

I would not be recommending the course to anyone, as I am not sure If they will cope with the frustration around the process of finishing it.

Sometimes I got freaked out when I completed a course with flying colors and still felt like I didn't understand anything. Unfortunately, that's exactly my experience with this course, Python for Data Science and AI offered by IBM.

If you are attracted by the title, or by the name IBM, then I advise you to stay away from it. There is nothing remotely data science or AI in this course. It should have been called Introduction to Python ,or Python for Beginners, but there are much better courses on this topic, such as those offered by the University of Michigan.

Here is why it is bad: All the videos feature the same robotic voice rushing through basic concepts as if someone is just reading from a textbook. I wonder if the narrator is an AI, not a real human. I could have overlooked that if the content is actually good. In contrast, its scope is very narrow, even for a beginner course. There is no walk through of common Python challenges and mistakes to solidify the concepts. and again, you are going to pick up more Python knowledge from other courses.

Worse, the exercises just promote rote learning and the ability to use IBM's products. There is just not enough practice exercises to help learners understanding. Most of my time spent on this course is actually dedicated to figuring out how to set up IBM Studio, or whatever it is called. I doubt anyone is going to benefit anything from this course.

I've always admired IBM's achievement, but it takes another skill set to deliver a good online course.

The first three courses in the Applied AI specialisation are much better than this one. During weeks 1-4, it remained a mystery how you're supposed to apply the content of the videos in practice. The videos are ok, but by far not as good and easy to follow as other videos here on coursera. In week 5, the final exam felt like completely out of the blue and not comparable to the weekly quizzes (which are far to short and easy to really be informative about where you stand).

I would not recommend this course, I myself only followed through with it because it is part of the specialization. I would say I got a first impression of Python, but so far I wouldn't trust myself with writing any code and I don't feel like I've gained long-term knowledge.

If I ever really needed Python in my job, I'd start over and take another course.

Note: in my experience, this is an exception. I've liked the other courses I took on coursera (some of which were also by IBM) much better!

The lectures are very focused, which is positive. Unfortunately, there are no lecture slides to download. The lecture voice is possibly machine-generated and there is no indication of empathy, which is kind of a cultural shock after having passed four of Dr. Chuck's great python courses. For unknown reasons I had to open each quiz twice to be able to submit. IBM's Developer Skills Network hosts the Jupyter notebooks and I wasted a lot of my time facing missing notebooks, timeouts, dying kernels, and slowly starting Docker containers. I'd rather like to download the notebooks and run them on my local machine (I found out how to do this by end of the 4th week). The notebooks are filled with IBM advertisements. A registration at IBM's Watson is necessary, but the setup descriptions are outdated and the setup is not uncomplicated.

1. I wish the labs had more doing and less reading. Especially since the labs and the videos cover pretty much the same stuff.

2. There are small errors everywhere in this course! It would be so much better if they just had one human take the time and go through the entire course from beginning to end, fixing any mistakes. For example sometimes the quiz questions in the videos pop up right before they explain something, not after. One of labs contains a table that is illegible. One of the labs asks a quiz question not covered by the lab itself. And the first to graded quizes are before the labs and they clearly should be after. I'm only in week two and these are all the mistakes I've found so far.

Not exactly a beginner friendly course. Videos are of poor quality like watching a bad powerpoint, voice sounds robotic. Sentences are cut off midway for a quick quiz question. The skills labs were oke, good for extra info on how to write code though the assignments just jumped to a more experienced level than beginner half way through the course. The quizes are to easy...

First course in the specialization just feels like a promotion for IBM software, a lot of info on how to open and read files in different programs without having to use them.. Just explain what programs are used in data science and why. Then when you actually have to use them you can dive deeper.

I was really unimpressed with this course. There were many grammatical errors throughout the lessons, labs, and the final assignment. The lessons move very quickly and the quizzes are not challenging. I would have liked the quizzes to feature more code-from-scratch questions. The labs did have coding questions but were also very easy. I never felt like the material 'stuck' with me. The most frustrating part of this course was the final assignment which tested us on concepts NEVER introduced during the course. The discussion forums reflected this as many other students were very confused as to how to complete the final project. I would not recommend this course.

The instructions for IBM Watson need some work for those of us who are not actively involved with that environment. I also utilized my "free" processing in a previous class (due to the same instruction complaint) and had to contact IBM support to resolve over the course of 5 days. I suppose the good news is that I am now much more educated on IBM Watson through trial and error coupled with customer support. It should be noted that a set of instructions from IBM support and a 7 minute phone call resolved my issue which I am pleased with. However, it took ~5 days to log a ticket and get to resolution.

While IBM's lectures have an irritating voiceover for lectures and can be stereotypically useless at times...they are usually really beneficial in one regard or another. However, this particular Python course is horrific and acts as if it were to help guide you through it, then pushes you into the deep end saying that you should know how to swim. I recommend taking a Python Bootcamp if you want to gain anything of substance out of this course, but then again, after the boot camp, you won't need it. For a "professional" company, this course leaves almost all to be desired.

The week 4 content is a complete 180 from the earlier content in the IBM Data Analysis Certificate. Spelling errors, poor video quality, incorrect information and exercises requiring you to use commands in Python that will not be introduced until later in the course. Some staff were also unhelpful in the forums; replying to questions about exercises and concerns with only a "Thanks for your feedback". I was very satisfied with the course until this point. Other parts of the course were well done and unfortunately made this one part stick out like a sore thumb.