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Learner Reviews & Feedback for Introduction to Data Science in Python by University of Michigan

4.5
stars
26,898 ratings

About the Course

This course will introduce the learner to the basics of the python programming environment, including fundamental python programming techniques such as lambdas, reading and manipulating csv files, and the numpy library. The course will introduce data manipulation and cleaning techniques using the popular python pandas data science library and introduce the abstraction of the Series and DataFrame as the central data structures for data analysis, along with tutorials on how to use functions such as groupby, merge, and pivot tables effectively. By the end of this course, students will be able to take tabular data, clean it, manipulate it, and run basic inferential statistical analyses. This course should be taken before any of the other Applied Data Science with Python courses: Applied Plotting, Charting & Data Representation in Python, Applied Machine Learning in Python, Applied Text Mining in Python, Applied Social Network Analysis in Python....

Top reviews

YH

Sep 28, 2021

This is the practical course.There is some concepts and assignments like: pandas, data-frame, merge and time. The asg 3 and asg4 are difficult but I think that it's very useful and improve my ability.

PK

May 9, 2020

The course had helped in understanding the concepts of NumPy and pandas. The assignments were so helpful to apply these concepts which provide an in-depth understanding of the Numpy as well as pandans

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5551 - 5575 of 5,915 Reviews for Introduction to Data Science in Python

By Waleed S

•

Jun 3, 2022

I have just started Week 1 course and it seems so painful that I wouldn't continue with this course. Unfortunately, I hadn't started the course earlier so the Return window has closed. I would not recommend this course as it isn't worth the cost.

Issues that need fixing -

1. Please don't use a live background behind the instructor, every movement in the background is distracting

2. The audio and code scripts don't align in most cases, which is difficult to follow, please correct. It is easier to just view the code example in the Notebook

3. It would be great to actually be prompted Right/Wrong on the interactive questions. It just displays the answer and then a solution

4. Instructor spends too much time talking some times where we need to watch him and there is no other content being presented, which seems very awkward. I would prefer to see actual code with a voice over in the background or atleast keep the instructor camera sessions to a minimum

5. The session could be driven more from Jupyter notebooks, but the video skips back to the Instructor's face so quickly that it doesn't give me time to look at what is being done in the code

By Patrick L

•

Jun 7, 2020

I wasted hours learning outdated code. I read on the course forums that the course is soon to be updated (July 2020?), but the course I did (May-June 2020) was developed in 2016, and quite a bit of the code that was taught was out of date. These courses should be reviewed for currency at least every year, and the failure to do so is reflective of poor quality control and also not the highest regard for students' time. My other criticisms are that the pace of the course was too fast - too much was covered in four weeks - and that the assignments made me rely too much on teaching myself. Some teaching of oneself is fine - we learn how to teach ourselves - but in this course it was just too much. I spent far more time on the course than the course overview suggested. Having said all this, I did learn quite a bit during the course, and Professor Brooks seems like a genuinely nice guy. As well as that, the readings on topics to do with data science were really interesting. So - overall, a frustrating course that teaches a decent amount inefficiently.

By Ronan R

•

Apr 5, 2020

Why are these people in a hurry???

I had to reduce the video speed to 0.75x to get through all the material, because they do not give you time to process anything. There is a video of a guy 'teaching' the numpy module where he spits out 185 numpy functions in less than 8 minutes, and that means 1 FUNCTION EVERY 2.5 SECONDS!! Who in the world can learn like this? I can only assume they are making these videos to show off how much they know instead of actually teaching. They should have given numpy a whole week instead of just one hasty video. And I feel that way about many of the other python modules they cover.

The projects are indeed challenging and that is fine. However, they are often putting questions on the graded assignments for things they didn't actually cover yet. They show you how to do A and then expect you to do ABCDEF on the graded assignments. Furthermore, the assignment questions are just badly worded, creating a lot of confusion and unnecessary stress (as seen in the course discussion forums).

By Evgenii L

•

Sep 16, 2023

I do not recommend this course. First, the provided material is not sufficient to pass the assignments. Assignments in W3 and W4 require high level of comfort with pandas, and to good extent with numpy. There is not enough practice in this course to get there, and then, some assignment element dive into specifics that are a) not covered in the course at all, and b) require not only theoretical knowledge of these libraries but also practical experience. The optional recommended book is in fact not optional. Alternative is to comb through many external tutorials, but then, why bother taking this course?

Now, I have over 20 years with Python, databases, corporate systems, and with business (non-data) analysis. I was really struggling, as I happened to have never worked with pandas before. Prior experience with pandas shall really be an entry requirement for this course.

I did pass it, with 100%, as I never give up. But it was not a good experience, and I have seen people on forum rage-quitting this course.

By Elias A M R

•

May 30, 2020

This course needs to be more user-friendly. I observed that video explanations way go too fast when they are typing code at the same time, so I felt like I had to simultaneously digest the explanation while also learning the code syntax, that is not friendly at all. I found myself many time re-watching and pausing the videos so that I could understand each step of the code. The course content is good, but I would compare this course to one of those classes were the content is really good but is not properly conveyed to the audience, specially when the audience is people with no previous experience with Pandas. Also, I get the point of going to Stack Overflow and consulting the Pandas the documentation to complete each weekly assignment, but what is the point on doing all that when I am taking a paid class precisely to be explained those concepts, I do not get it, if that is the philosophy behind the course, then it is flawed, it is just better to tell students ''go learn Pandas on your own".

By Evan B

•

Dec 6, 2016

The course gives practice in Python, but programming assignments were loaded with "busy work" that added little value and often had only loose ties to the material discussed in class. While this forces more independent learning, it also makes it so that this course isn't really much better than free online tutorials. I found myself learning almost everything for the programming assignments from the pandas package documentation and from Google searches that led to stackoverflow. For an instructor from the University of Michigan whose bio says "I work with colleagues to design tools to better the teaching and learning experience in higher education," I was expecting a lot more value for the time spent in this class. I suspect that this course is being used to provide data for furthering his own research. It's often more difficult to maximize value to customers when personal incentives may not be perfectly aligned with customer (student) objectives.

By Stefan A

•

Jan 29, 2023

This course could benefit from some improvements in organization and structure. The amount of time required for lectures and assignments can be inconsistent, making it difficult for learners to plan ahead. Additionally, the lectures could be more focused and better organized, for example by starting from best practices rather than common mistakes. The use of technical terms could be clearer. Some of the examples provided also contain errors or outdated code. The assignments also have room for improvement. Instructions are often confusing and, in some cases, grammatically not quite correct. Some assignments require learners engage in questionable data practices (e.g. incomplete data cleanup) for submissions to be graded as 'correct'. Furthermore, some of the latter assignments place an excessive burden on learners to educate themselves on key procedures and functions, which doesn't seem to align with the learning objectives of this course.

By Srinivasan L

•

Oct 30, 2017

This is not an organized course by any means. The lectures do not cover much and assignments are incredibly tough to the point that each requires more than a week by themselves.

For context, I have completed the Python Specialization by Dr.Chuck (Which was incredible!) and have an Fulltime-Masters in Engineering. One of my main motivation for taking this course is to learn all the topics in well structured manner but I don't understand what Dr. Brooks trying to do with his bizarre way of 'teaching'. Unfortunately, Dr. Brooks just points to StackOverFlow for everything rather than explaining the concepts by himself.

Currently, I am just learning through various Pandas Lectures in youtube and attempting the assignment (which is harder than most assignments I have completed in my college!!). Unless you have great motivation to learn by yourself, this course would be very hard to complete.

By Linda S

•

Apr 5, 2022

This course did not provide the quality intermediate content that I was expecting. The lectures present material at a lower level with instructions to read elsewhere for further information. The lecturer is clearly versed in the topic but did not invest a lot of time in designing this course. The problem set gave me a chance to implement what I learned elsewhere but it was also frustrating dealing with the autograder. Also I felt like a lot of time was invested in unnecessary tasks like digging through an 80pg document to find the column name of the metric I needed to use to solve a homework problem. I can respect that this is how things go in real life but I took the class to learn intermediate python techniques for data analysis...

The only reason I am giving this course 2 stars is becuase the mentors and helpers are motivated and quick to help when people post questions.

By emma b

•

Jan 21, 2017

While the material is undoubtedly useful, te structure of the assessments is not very helpful. For example, in week 3 we are asked to create data frames from input files: these are presented in descending order of complexity for cleanup. Furthermore, the points for most of the questions are 6.66, despite what are very different demands fore each part. In the final week, the dictionary of state names is counterproductive in answering part one (some state names are region names) and one can either get 100% or one fails the course (as one question is worth 50% of the grade.)

Some of the autograder feedback is so terse as to be downright infuriating. Add to that frequent issues with the notebook crashing and much of this coursework was an exercise in unnecessary frustration rather than increasing enlightenment.

By David M

•

Sep 26, 2018

Primary instructor is very good and very clear. Although I feel that in the MOOC format he could have spent more time going through the mechanisms going on underneath (even if you don’t need it to complete the problem sets). However the lectures from the assistant are poor - he seems to speak without explaining anything.

Major issue is the problem sets themselves. Some of the questions are really poorly written (and I think in some cases wrong). For example in week 4 I spent longer trying to debug a question (that I got right) than I spent on the whole week put together; the answer being something that wasn’t explicitly asked for in the question.

If you’ take the course read the forums... there are dozens of posts from students (and teaching assistants) complaingin about the questions.

By Ruth P C

•

Feb 24, 2020

Unfortunately, the course delivery style was not right for me. The profesor background is good, but the teaching style is too much talking (difficult to remember), and that doesn't helps to understand Pandas or Numpy concepts. There were very few visual aids. The course uses Jupyter notebooks with code examples, it would really help to add some written explanation to them, because the explanation in the video goes too fast. It would be great to have more practice to construct gradually the knowledge at least at the beginning. Most of the learning was on my own reading books, python docs which does not focus on conceptual explanation, and using stackoverflow as it was recommended during the course. This course is for somebody that does not expect much guidance or explanation.

By WARDA I

•

May 27, 2020

il manque beaucoup de théorie, je me suis retrouvée à perdre énormément de temps à chercher sur internet pour pouvoir répondre aux Assignement. Au point, on l'on se demande à quoi sert le cours (version video) à la base, car si on nous avait donné les Assignement seuls sans le cours ça aurait été pareil !

c'est à dire que : durant le cours je n'ai absolument rien appris ! De plus, le fait que le cours soit fait dans dans l'open space et qu'on voit les gens travailler, boire de l'eau .... ça déconcentre énormément.

Néanmoins, comme que suite aux recherches que j'ai fait j'ai appris beaucoup de chose et ça été grâce aux assignements qui même les questions étaient assez vagues (exemple total ou top ?? ça prêtait à confusion )

C'est pour ça que je donne une note de 2/5.

merci

By Andrew M

•

Apr 22, 2020

Completed the first course but probably won't continue.

U of M auto-grader uses an old version of Python (3.6) and an ancient version of Pandas (0.20.2), so after you code everything up in 3.7.7, you have to go back and try to get it to work in 3.6 and old Pandas. This just comes down to how you want to spend your time in life: learning and solving problems or messing around with an old auto-grader.

This is a total waste of time and effort. There is no reason to spend time doing this just to appease the auto-grader.

I was considering the Data Science Masters program, too, but I want to learn, not fight old versions of Python and Pandas. Good to know now, I guess! What a shame. This series could have been great!

By Michael A

•

Nov 22, 2016

Course teaches Python Pandas in a very practical way and I'm sure now having learnt it I'll use the skill. But this course wasn't taught well. Weekly assignments asked questions about skills that had not been taught yet. The course coordinators didn't respond or help in the forums, The topic area deserves more in depth video lectures and discussion. All the above basically means that passing the weekly assignments takes longer than you may assume. Had the course been taught and tested more effectively then doing the weekly assignments would less frustrating and time consuming.

Basically the course is good, but it requires much more work and research because of the poor way its caught and monitored by staff.

By Varun

•

Apr 18, 2018

Course content is very scarce as compared to what is asked in assignments. No explanation is give to what function does and what should be its inputs and outputs. Unlike Professor chuck's course this course is very tough and not at all an introductory course. Assignments take 4x more time than mentioned in course content. Overall a very heavy work for student to go through other online materials to understand what each function does. It feels like I have learnt alot from other websites than in this course. What is the point in taking a course if I have to go through other materials from some other website? Please change course content, make videos more elaborative, reduce the difficulty of assignments.

By Filippo M

•

Aug 15, 2020

The instructor reads during lectures, making them hard to follow. In-lecture quizzes are inappropriate as they cannot be answered without further research outside of the material covered in the lectures. (That is appropriate for assignments and projects but not for in-lecture quizzes.) Finally, the quality of the feedback from instructors in the discussion forums is low, including incorrect/misleading answers. Another annoying feature is that the notebooks expire after a much shorter time than it takes to complete the assignments. Autosave does not always work. So it's possible to lose work. On the pro side, the material covered is relevant and I learned a lot in doing the assignments.

By Rose B

•

Dec 29, 2016

Positive aspects:

Readings were relevant and interesting.

I learned a lot.

I was challenged.

Negative aspects:

Programming assignments took SIGNIFICANTLY longer than suggested (I have 20+ years of programming experience and am fluent in 3 programming languages, but I'm new to Python).

Course did not provide enough support to learners. You're on your own to learn the material and you won't get timely responses (if any) from the staff. I asked clarifying questions about lecture material on the Discussion Forums and got no response (twice).

Several concepts were not taught with appropriate detail / explanation. For example, there was no instruction on how to read error messages in Python.

By X. B C

•

Feb 23, 2018

This course is a mess:

-Not well structured

-They don't properly guide you in the learning process : better courses from better universities, as Stanford ones, describe all you need to complete an assignment, or give you a good and deep introduction to the libraries/framework you have to use... here they just explain part, non including many info you need in the assignment, so, you have to spend a lot of time trying to find proper documentation, reading other external tutorials, checking people with same issues in stack overflow -some even with the same datasets, I am not sure if they were from the same course

A lot of stuff to improve, I recommend to you to look for another course

By Yu L

•

Oct 16, 2017

I have learn a lot by taking this course not from the instructor or TA but through stackoverflow. There is clearly a gap between the video and the assignments. The instructor are knowledgable but less of ability to instruct. When watching the video, I need to pause to clearly read what instructor just typed. I feel like the instructor is reading the screen without clarifying the contents. There are a lot of times I want the quit the course but I finally make it, so proud of myself. Working on the assignment with the help of stackoverflow, I learn a lot.

In sum, I really think the instructor needs to improve the way he teaches and the assignments are useful. Thanks.

By Adam S

•

Aug 15, 2021

This course is incredibly frustrating; so much seems to be glossed over in the use of Pandas. It's understandable, and can be enlightening, to ask students to reach out to their peers and to pull information from various sources. However, the assignments given at the end of each week are loosely associated with the video lectures for that week, and it assumes you have an intermediate or advanced background in the use of the Pandas and NumPy libraries to make up for the information in between.

If I were a full-time student, I'd find this to be a challenging course. As a part-time student and full-time employee of a company, this is just frustrating at best.

By Marc J

•

Jun 30, 2022

Week 1 and 2 are pretty good. After that the learning content provided in the videos is not helpful for the assignments, which are too long and ill designed, meaning parts of the (same) assignment rely on the correct output of previous parts (error propagation). As a paying customer I wish for more explanation by the instructor and less advice on reading on stackoverflow or elsewhere in order to be well prepared for assignments. Generally reading is a good thing; if the contents are didactically prepared, I would even prefer it over the video contents. But this course gets most of it wrong. A silver lining is the help one gets in the discussion section.

By See H L

•

May 28, 2019

One thing I dislike a lot about this Specialization is that it forces you to work through their structured weekly materials rigidly. It does not allow you from working on Week 2 and Week 3 courseworks when you have finished Week 1 materials which I think it is just a way for the course owner to make more money from you. Their excuse is that they allow 'other students' to mark your work to promote interactions between students but I think this makes no sense as not people who takes these courses have a uniformed fixed number of hours each week. The whole point of studying an online course is to be flexible with the hours you put in, which this isnt.