Courses projects were more difficult than expected. The course does not give enough examples about topics. Examples, if given, are way more easy than the assignments and do not prepare you well for the weekly projects.

Not a lot of help from mentors/instructors -- you are pretty much on your own when it comes to figuring out what the expectations of the projects are. The videos cover (very) basic material and you end up spending the majority of your time in the specialization on STACK_OVERFLOW. There are no examples of what's expected for output of projects and you are at the mercy of the computer grader to try to figure out why your code doesn't work -- a lot of time despite what appears to be the correct output at your terminal. And the discussion forums are trolled by the students -- and probably the mentors -- but it may take 7 - 10 days to get a response to a question -- of any response at all. And to be honest, the few responses I received were in the realm of "This is so easy, why don't you understand it?!" And there is no final -- or instructor generated code -- to compare to yours at the end of each project to get some feedback on how you're coming as a coder. Overall, a frustrating experience that honestly could be made better if some examples of input and final code were provided for the projects. This is NOT for the beginning coder w/o some Python experience.

The course has been well structured and the assignments are quite challenging which means you would definitely be spending your time on stackoverflow/google but this is how one can learn to code. It's difficult to trach each and every detail. However, couple suggestions i can make -1.) It took a very long time to understand the problem statements in the projects. It would be great if more information is provided on what is the exact input and expected output (instead of being verbose if an example function call is given it would be more helpful).

2.) The code i had written for the assignments even though they work i wasnt sure if they are optimized enough. If any inputs are provided on this it would be good to compare our code with the optimized one and can improve our skills further.

Overall a very informative course. I would recommend this to anyone who wishes to master the basics of python data structures and their manipulation.

At times a bit tough if you want to fully understand all parts of the "basics", but highly worth it

Despite the title, the majority of the focus is on data reconciliation, mapping sources and such. Little focus on the actual visualization mechanisms (tools or means to depict data in a meaningful manner). Good course if you are new'ish to Python and wish to learn about dictionary mappings. Heavily structured 'homework' constrains work breakdown into pre-defined functions which is constraining and the naming conventions (enforced) are atypical from most best practices.

This course doesn't spoonfeed you much, while I learned a lot it felt largely like unguided failing and frantic googling. OtwlTest was invaluable and I wouldn't have passed without that tool.

It is a really good course. I love it.

The advantages of this course are:

1. Interesting and challenging assignments.

1) The assignments for c3 and c4 are challenging, which helps build self-confidence.

2) Although some problems are not easy, if you think more and try your best to debug, you'll make it! In this course nothing is impossible as long as you do not give up. Test files are provided for you to check your work, so it really depends on whether you are diligent. Keep at it.

2. Good instructors. They've worked very hard to make students learn more and understand more. To improve study experience, they even developed a useful tool OwlTest, where you can find all your submissions (including your code and test results).

3. If you have problems, you can go to the forum where you can turn to mentors. You are not alone.

This was an interesting course to learn both about Python and Data Visualization. Although it's made for beginners, it's very challenging because you have to search external documentation to complete the tasks each week and the answers are never presented to you... you really have to work to find the correct solutions.

The provided tools to test your code are crucial and more than enough so you can finish the course and learn about this amazing field.

I definitely recommend this course!

The Project Assignments fails to create interest. Instead it gave a lot of confusion with challenging function naming and problem description.

This specialization was amazing and I enjoyed every moment of it during watching its videos and also doing its projects. I was absolutely beginner in coding, and have a great progress in programming so far. Again, I'd like to thank prof. Rixner and prof. Warren for their fantastic method of teaching, I've never got bored in their classes, and also prof. Dennis for his detailed resposes and helps in discussion forums.

This course is no cakewalk. If you think you can watch the videos ,do the practice assignments and then take quizzes, you are just at the starting point. You will have to do external research to grasp some of the more challenging concepts to complete the assignments. These courses are not easy for the working professional but it will remind you how much effort you had to go through during your undergraduate days!

Many thanks to Rice University and for the amazing professors and all the forum mentors. it was a wonderful journey. Learned a lot week by week, by working on mini projects, writing code each week to accomplish useful task. I feel now more confident in writing scripts using Python and working with Packages and Modules and reading Python documentation.

the last part of the project was really frustrating, not sure if overcoming frustration amounts to new skills :D

I have managed to learn a lot from this specialization, thanks!

please add some more tests to the final final project as I spent 3-4 hours looking at the wrong place (unless the goal was to trap me, which would be evil!!)

Very good course. Thorough and detailed explanation of all concepts. Course takes you smoothly from beginner level to the very end. Amazing how much can be learned in this course. The learning curve is gradual so make sure you follow instructions and complete all the practice assignments in order. Definitely worth the time.

This is a very in depth specialization course on scripting in python. I am grateful to the instructors for giving such wonderful hands on practical exercises to consolidating the learning process. It is a course I highly recommend for any beginner or even professional who seeks to understand scripting with python

The whole specialization is really great. It does really explain the basics of python and then little bit of what is more complex. At the end of the specialization you felt very comfortable using python and with good basics that can help to be able to create something no than basic.

Thank you

This course was so perfect. It inspired me to learn more about python.

And help me understand why GitHub, why version control.

And it is a supplementary of "Fundamental of Computing".

I learnt a lot from these courses. Big thanks to Scott and Joe and others.

Cheers!

Hope the staff will continue to work on new exercises for the course. The difficulty level is just right for a non-programmer such as myself. The last post when I was lookin at the forum was 4 years ago. Hope you're able to get more people to join this course

I enjoyed the specialization so much and recommend it for anyone starting to learn python. Although I had a little bit of experience, I learned a lot and I want to thank incredible professors teaching these course for their methods of teaching and charisma

The courses were challenging, but very excited, especially for someone with foreknowledge of computer programming. I just wanted to get a deeper feel of Python, to complement my C,C++ programming skills. I bet it worth all the time with Scott and Joe!