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Learner Reviews & Feedback for Introduction to Python Programming by University of Pennsylvania

4.5
stars
1,050 ratings

About the Course

This course provides an introduction to programming and the Python language. Students are introduced to core programming concepts like data structures, conditionals, loops, variables, and functions. This course includes an overview of the various tools available for writing and running Python, and gets students coding quickly. It also provides hands-on coding exercises using commonly used data structures, writing custom functions, and reading and writing to files. This course may be more robust than some other introductory python courses, as it delves deeper into certain essential programming topics....

Top reviews

IN

Jun 29, 2023

All the contents are expressed direct and clear and no previous experience is needed, that's why I really enjoy this course. I would like to also understand Python comprehension lists in this course.

SB

Mar 26, 2021

Great explanations and lots of examples to follow on. The course built throughout so I had confidence in completing assignments though they were not easy. Great interaction in discussion forums.

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251 - 275 of 306 Reviews for Introduction to Python Programming

By Lakshya P

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Jun 25, 2022

good course for beginner level python programmer.

By Fumikatu

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May 28, 2023

This assignment is quite difficult for beginners

By Kiruthiga.M

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Feb 24, 2023

very very hard task in week4 otherwise great!

By khalil g

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May 28, 2022

good courses , you are active part with it

By SAWAN K

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Jan 9, 2022

nice course good intitative

By Aqueel P

•

Apr 3, 2021

Good and comprehensive

By shubham p

•

Oct 10, 2021

Nice Course

By Vedant P

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May 11, 2022

THANK YOU

By Ameer H

•

Aug 23, 2023

good

By MISBAHUL H

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Mar 23, 2022

good

By Yingying G

•

Mar 24, 2021

The instructor was very helpful in demonstrating the specific programming languages, but I wish he could, before diving into the syntax, give a better picture from an overarching prospective for non-technical background students (e.g. what is an object, what is a method) and explain more about why we are using which kind of variable/function/flow control/data structure. This goes true for the code along demonstrations as well where I hope more instructions could focus on why we are doing it this way, or why we are choosing this particular function/data structure etc. I find the instructor mostly reading what's already in the comments line which are accessible by student-reading itself.

I also think it will be useful for the instructor to introduce the use of the flow chart when developing a program. I find it the most challenging thing in completing the homework - not the programming syntax itself - but rather than the design of the flow of the program, which was simply not mentioned much in the course.

There are also a few discrepancies in the last assignment that took my a lot of time to debug. Requirements (e.g. to check if the user is logged in in the 'change_password' function, and to delete the user in the 'bank dictionary' as well as the 'log_in' dictionary in the 'delete' function, etc.) were not mentioned in the directions under the functions. I could only debug by learning to read the test case lines. It would be nice if every requirement is stated explicitly, as they are mostly in other parts of the course. Students should expect the level of clarity at the same level throughout the course, instead of being able to follow the directions closely step by step and then in other parts of the course, guess what are required implicitly by the assignment.

By Hannah C

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Mar 7, 2024

It's an OK course; the homework assignments are confusing and I had to audit the course in order to get the basic content. The video's are very informative, but the homework assignments in NOTEBOOK are broken and no one has bothered or taken the time to fix them. Shame, I wanted the PA MIT Certification for "Intro to Python" to display on my LinkedIn profile. If the team that runs this class updated the homework assignments, it'd be great, but alas, I can only give it three stars due to the issues within the course. Additionally, there isn't much interaction in the forums when I repeatedly ask harmful questions in the neighborhood as the instructor instructs. I wish there were more peer-to-peer interaction, as that would be very helpful in the application of running Python code. My advice is to audit the class, copy and paste the transcripts, and then print them. The pdf's offered were small in size and could hardly be read, making them very imprecise for class work. Also, the PDFs took up way too much ink and toner. I highly recommend getting a laser jet monochrome printer, as they last longer and won't cost an arm and a leg to print in the long run because toner lasts forever before it needs to be replaced. Also, I highly recommend writing down notes; yes, it's old school but it'll greatly improve grasping the concepts that are covered in the class. Good luck! Don't get down about the above-mentioned; keep looking for five-star-rated courses and auditing them so you don't have to pay the fee for the class. Practice makes perfect; find some peers to interact with in a class that is more active than this one is.

By Katherine C

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Jul 3, 2021

This was a fairly good course, although I have to say I was only confident in the material I learned during Week 1. The quizzes are very simple and are based on the videos/material, but the homework assignments are much more complicated. I felt some of the assignments required us to do things that were just brushed upon and weren't fully explained, which made it very difficult to do with little to none guidance. Also, the TAs take days to respond (the longest before I got a response was a week) and are generally not very helpful. After Week 1, I had to do a lot more research and learning myself and look for other resources outside this course to pass the assignments. I will say I did learn a lot from this course and had a decent experience but it can improve a lot.

By Sylvie Z

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Nov 11, 2022

This course is not for a complete beginner.

The course is structured well but dumps a lot of information (functions, syntax) at you without providing a sufficient explanation.

The assignments are the most horrific. Poorly designed submission system - hard to use the interface to debug, unclear instructions from start to finish. You go through ~30 minutes of instructional videos each week and are stuck on the assignment for 5+ hours. The assignments could be a lot more straightforward and easy to follow if sufficient instructions were provided.

By Wes W

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Mar 24, 2022

Not for me. I was hoping to take this course to supplement/reinforce the curriculum from Python for Everybody (which is excellent), but found the lectures to be too rote. To give one example, rather than covering operators for math equations at a high level, giving a couple examples and moving on, there was too much time wasted going over each individual operator.

I also found the videos to be too short. I never could get into a rhythm as the content felt disjointed when one video ended and I had to start another.

By Natalia A

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Jun 19, 2022

Probably this is nice as a refresher or if you are a genious. As a total newbie I had millions of questions that either never got answered or got answered briefly, in passing. The information wasn't srtuctured logically and the authors assumed I instantly memorized anything they mentioned (when does this ever happen even with very dedicated learners??).

Either way, I stumbled through this and I do feel like I did learn something, so not a waste of time.

By Amr S

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Sep 12, 2022

I really do not recommend this course for beginners who know nothing about Programming , this is not the best source you can get programming basics from . I walked through this course successfly because of my previous knowledge about programming basics and of course from youtube videos for more details , simple explanation for this course topics !

By Amanda C

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Jun 11, 2022

My biggest complaint about this course is there isn't much correspondance within the forums. There is mainly just one person responding to posts which makes response times slower and also streches that person thin with their responses. Otherwise, it was a good course.

By Yu X

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Jan 30, 2023

There is a gap between video teaching and assignments. And sometimes your questions on the discussion forum cannot be responded to on time by the staff. They seem to forget that some students are like total beginners and have no other sources to rely on.

By Michel J A B

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Oct 2, 2021

This course is great if you have absolutely no previous programming experience. But in all honesty, the homework that you have to do at the end of each week is way to hard for amound of explanation in the videos before.

By Dan Y

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Oct 25, 2022

Instruction was good, however assignments were a bit vague. Using Jupyter Notebook, while very convenient, isn't always the way people will use Python "in the field" (unless they're doing ML,of course).

By Haider A

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Oct 29, 2022

the last homework is really hard and im trying since a week but my answers always get wrong. even i have consulted a tutor but i dont know what is the issue why all my answers gets wrong

By Hadeer E K

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Nov 13, 2021

It was a great course and really useful but, I have enrolled in another about python too. so things became complicated with me. but the overall course is useful. Thanks a lot

By Jingwen C

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Mar 17, 2021

In the beginning, it is ok. But later there a lot of codes in the video just come out, the lecturer does not mention why and you have to google and learn it yourself.

By Juan P L F

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Nov 6, 2022

This is a great course, however, it goes very fast, and going that fast, sometimes you don't get to have enough practice to actually learn all the concepts.