Python Data Structures

So, nobody likes to read negative reviews on things that have a generally "high opinion" of. Certainly I am not the most educated either and as such I do take that in to consideration while writing this (I have no formal degrees). But I did want to share my personal opinion in an open manner, regardless of how against the grain it may be, to hopefully help someone out there that might be similar to myself. Here it is:

This is the second course in the specialization "Python for Everybody Specialization" and it picks up from where you left off in the first course (basically, this course finishes teaching the basics). Here is where I personally started to flounder in the water, so to speak, with learning Python. The courses come with a free book titled "Python for Everybody" and it is strongly recommended to read along with the courses as you progress. Well, I have found that there are contradictory bits of information between what Dr.Chuck teaches, and what the book is teaching. They are subtle contradictions that I couldn't put my finger on but I just knew they were there. What I mean is, the book will cover information you are supposed to use for that chapter and then when it comes time to complete an assignment, we are not supposed to use what we learned??! It created this feeling of being lost, and almost incompetent enough to understand the logic of the course. (I hope that this makes sense in what I am trying to convey).
I really am giving all the courses 110% and not leaving any stone un-turned. Truly something is missing in this course that is leaving me frustrated with myself, and the content. My recommend to anybody who plans to take this course, or the entire specialization, is to definitely learn the basics of python from somewhere else. Read other sources, do other exercises, start somewhere else AND THEN come here. Another reviewer here recommended there be more hands-on exercises with this course and I definitely agree. But the information given in this course is lacking something. Just to be clear though, Dr. Chuck is absolutely an awesome instructor -- his personality, his knowledge, his sense of humor, and his candidness.
I would like to add also that the book has practice exercises throughout the chapters. However, you will run in to some that you can not complete as even the staff on the forums tell you to just move on from. But more so, there is no answer key to accompany them! How are you going to know if you did something correct if you can't reference something that shows the correct way. The fact that staff on the forums even tell you to avoid some of the exercises speaks volumes in how much the book is lacking.

In summary: This course should be taken after you have some comfort in knowing a bit of python language, personally. That is because the information seems conflicting, there are not enough hands-on lessons, and you will run in to (what I think) contradictory undertones where you're taught one way but told to do a different way. Not a bad course by any stretch, but may leave you feeling lost. The course has definitely made me second guess myself because I feel so lost right now. I am reading another book on Python right now to help feel more comfortable about what I have learned, which up to this point doesn't feel like a lot. Furthermore, I am paying out of pocket for these courses and I am at a stand still with progression until I feel absolutely comfortable. The staff on the forums are being helpful to an extent, but they're only there to help you to an extent as there are thousands of other students who need help as well!
I really hope this reaches the right person. The person who wants a new career, eagerly wants to learn how to code, and passionately wants to create a better life for themselves without going the formal education route. Also, I hope this review is versatile enough to fit anybody's frame of mind regardless of education or life circumstances. Thank you for reading!

Let's be realistic with yourself in finding and completing a MOOC. There are probably less than 10 courses on this subject that are worth taking because it has all the material you are looking to use in your job. However, there are fewer still that not only explain all the material you're looking for, yet also make it interesting. Then there are the 1% of courses that have all the material you need, is interesting and challenges you in the exercises. All too often, you'll see a MOOC that is easy to digest but the exercises are too theoretical and/or laughably easy. This course won't let you down with exercises that don't apply to what you'd really use in real life. This is clearly the best course on the subject for the beginner programmer. Really. It's seriously the best on the internet today.

This is the second course in the Python for Everybody specialization, and corresponds to the second half of the previous course of the same name. As with the first course (Getting Started with Python), I found Dr. Chuck's thorough approach to the material to be likely to be very approachable for a beginning programmer. I have some experience with Python, including the previous course and a course in the Genomic Data Science specialization, and I have a fair amount more experience programming using R, so I found this course very easy.

The course introduces the common data structures in Python (lists, strings, files, dictionaries, tuples) and the functions used to manipulate them. Dr. Chuck does an excellent job of introducing each piece, although the course is a bit light on practice problems, and there are probably better resources for actually getting comfortable using these on a regular basis. The book "Learn Python the Hard Way" and the EdX course from MITx (6.00.1x) are supposed to be two of the best resources out there. I recently bought the first and enrolled in the second, so I'm hopeful that they will help me to become as comfortable programming in Python as I am in R.

Overall, four stars. A gentle introduction to data structures in Python, but a little light on the exercises needed to become really proficient in using them.

Let me start off by saying I'm grading Dr. Chuck on a pedagogical level, not on him as a person. As a person on camera, he's charming, speaks a great pace that isn't too fast, and repeats himself often to try to drive the points home. He makes great eye contact with the camera which comes across well when watching the videos. In terms of these skills, he earns an A+.

From a pedagogical standpoint, he's failing badly. Dr. Chuck has fallen into the Match and Science trap of American Universities that seemingly try to weed out those who can succeed at the highest levels, from those who enjoy and could have a solid career as someone runnign basic programs. For some odd reason, even though the U.S. is desperate for engineers and coders, people like Dr. Chuck continue to focus on the theoretical, and leave it up to us to try to figure out the practical.

The class hit rock bottom in the Chapter 8 exercises when one problem asked us to solve a problem in a way neither Dr. Chuck nor the book ever really explained how to do. We were expected to "figure it out". At one point I even found a solution online, read it, and had *zero* clue what it meant. Eventually after spending a couple days, I stumbled across the solution by accident and just accepted I wasn't going to understand it.

Then, Chapter 9 hit and Dr. Chuck actually became a good (pedagogically) teacher. Following the highly successful technique of "See one, do one, teach one," granted we can't do the teach one part unless we know people also taking the class. But up until this point, he had chosen to skip the "see one" aspect of our learning. He'd teach the theory, and then just move on without showing an example of how to work it in the real world. I equate this to taking someone to an empty beach who's never seen a surfer in their life. The instructor hands them a board and then squats to the ground and says, "this should be your stance on the board when you're riding. Now go surf!" Teaching that way sets up the student for failure. But Dr. Chuck didn't do this in Chapter 9, instead he did an entire 20 minute video going step by step through a real world program, explainign ever aspect of it. With this clear example, I was able to look at the other example questions in teh book and solve them within minutes, not hours, because not only did I understand the theory behind the solution, I understood the pratical flow of the code and why and where each line needed to be to make it work.

Then Chapter 10 happened and I almost stopped entirely. He spent an entire leture on tuples, then showed one slide saying "this is an easier way of doing it" and then didn't show us how to do it. I've never been so livid with the failure of an instructor.

All that being said, I think Dr. Chuck's class is great if you've already taken another beginner class and want to get a better sense of it all. if this is your first go around, and you aren't technically savvy in general, run as fast as you can from this class, as you will get almost zero pratical explanations along the way.

So, nobody likes to read negative reviews on things that have a generally "high opinion" of. Certainly I am not the most educated either and as such I do take that in to consideration while writing this (I have no formal degrees). But I did want to share my personal opinion in an open manner, regardless of how against the grain it may be, to hopefully help someone out there that might be similar to myself. Here it is:

This is the second course in the specialization "Python for Everybody Specialization" and it picks up from where you left off in the first course (basically, this course finishes teaching the basics). Here is where I personally started to flounder in the water, so to speak, with learning Python. The courses come with a free book titled "Python for Everybody" and it is strongly recommended to read along with the courses as you progress. Well, I have found that there are contradictory bits of information between what Dr.Chuck teaches, and what the book is teaching. They are subtle contradictions that I couldn't put my finger on but I just knew they were there. What I mean is, the book will cover information you are supposed to use for that chapter and then when it comes time to complete an assignment, we are not supposed to use what we learned??! It created this feeling of being lost, and almost incompetent enough to understand the logic of the course. (I hope that this makes sense in what I am trying to convey).

I really am giving all the courses 110% and not leaving any stone un-turned. Truly something is missing in this course that is leaving me frustrated with myself, and the content. My recommend to anybody who plans to take this course, or the entire specialization, is to definitely learn the basics of python from somewhere else. Read other sources, do other exercises, start somewhere else AND THEN come here. Another reviewer here recommended there be more hands-on exercises with this course and I definitely agree. But the information given in this course is lacking something. Just to be clear though, Dr. Chuck is absolutely an awesome instructor -- his personality, his knowledge, his sense of humor, and his candidness.

I would like to add also that the book has practice exercises throughout the chapters. However, you will run in to some that you can not complete as even the staff on the forums tell you to just move on from. But more so, there is no answer key to accompany them! How are you going to know if you did something correct if you can't reference something that shows the correct way. The fact that staff on the forums even tell you to avoid some of the exercises speaks volumes in how much the book is lacking.

In summary: This course should be taken after you have some comfort in knowing a bit of python language, personally. That is because the information seems conflicting, there are not enough hands-on lessons, and you will run in to (what I think) contradictory undertones where you're taught one way but told to do a different way. Not a bad course by any stretch, but may leave you feeling lost. The course has definitely made me second guess myself because I feel so lost right now. I am reading another book on Python right now to help feel more comfortable about what I have learned, which up to this point doesn't feel like a lot. Furthermore, I am paying out of pocket for these courses and I am at a stand still with progression until I feel absolutely comfortable. The staff on the forums are being helpful to an extent, but they're only there to help you to an extent as there are thousands of other students who need help as well!

I really hope this reaches the right person. The person who wants a new career, eagerly wants to learn how to code, and passionately wants to create a better life for themselves without going the formal education route. Also, I hope this review is versatile enough to fit anybody's frame of mind regardless of education or life circumstances. Thank you for reading!

Dr. Chuck is great and I really wanted to give this course four stars but I felt that with the content's importance (lists, dictionaries, tuples, et al) as part of the fundamental foundations of programming going forward (along with algorithms via the previous course) that it should go into greater explanation depth and include more examples.

With Data Structures you're dealing with more moving parts and it took awhile for the 'a-ha' to click with re-watching the videos, going through the Informatics textbook, external research and readings. Even now, I would like more practice with Data Structures and am concerned about progressing to the next course with only a cursory understanding vs really feeling that I have it down.

An added bonus would be to include more anecdotal use application examples beyond parsing the mailbox and Shakespeare passage, e.g. you could use data structures like these to address an everyday work problem like ____________, or if you're building a web application you would use data structures to _________. Putting more real world context to how professional programmers / developers use data structures (even if we don't know all the mechanics yet) would help to see the big picture of where this is going and its future applicability.

Definitely the difficulty increased a little bit from the first part of this course. But it was lots of fun going through it.

On my review of the first part, I mentioned about the importance of reading through the chapters, watching the summary videos from Dr. Chuck, and then take the assessment. After taking this part of the course, that approach got reinforced. As the difficulty level increases, it will become extremely important that the learner fully understands the concepts being taught. While Dr. Chuck does an EXCELLENT job on those videos, there is only so much that can be packed in a less than 10 minute-long video.

Lists, Dictionaries, and Tuples are definitely powerful Data Structure concepts in Python and other languages. This course does an excellent job navigating though those in a simple manner.

Lastly, I second Dr. Chuck's suggestion of installing an IDE and run your Python code there before trying the online tool. Even though the online tool is very good, you will be able to play around with the code by making modifications to experiment. Also, you will get an opportunity to refine your code before running it in the online tool. Why this is important, because depending on the defect in your code, you can run into issues with the page.

This was a fantastic class. The only programming course I have ever taken was a C++ course in high school nearly 30 years ago -- needless to say, I remember none of it. Then, in 2 decades as an educator teaching high school government, law, and history, although I have always been interested in computers, technology, and rudimentary programming (i.e. writing complicated Excel formulas), it never really seemed like a good time to jump in. A recent job shift has me in a position where I am doing much more curriculum development and mentoring of new teachers, and I am doing that across disciplines. So as I began to talk more about our STEM offerings, including in both programming and robotics, the time seemed right to really dive back in.

I found this class after a bunch of research, and it met all my expectations. Generally, I'm pretty skeptical of online learning, especially in the MOOC format. So much of teaching for me has been about personal connection, and the give-and-take of the classroom -- it was, and still is, hard for me to imagine an online course even coming close to the quality of what I'd get in person. However, Dr. Chuck's class really impressed me both in terms of substance and pedagogy.

I found the (free) textbook quite helpful, and it tracks the lectures pretty well (only a few topics covered in different orders, but none of the contradictions that another reviewer noted -- everything fit with the lectures perfectly). I appreciated the piecemeal design of the lectures, as well. Each segment is designed to teach a single idea/skill, and at several points, Dr. Chuck emphasized how important it was to be comfortable with the material in one segment before moving on to the next.

The slides accompanying the lectures were excellent. Dr. Chuck works through the code and exercises in those slides in a very conversational and interactive way, annotating as he goes, and explaining why we would want to do certain things in certain ways, bridging well the "computer language vs. normal English" divide. It was very helpful to have those examples, and slightly different examples from the textbook, to help reason through the different assignments.

The quizzes were the sort of recall, multiple-choice things you'd expect in a MOOC, so nothing special there, but I did like the way that that autograder functioned for writing code, and I also appreciated the suggestions by Dr. Chuck about downloading Python immediately, using a text editor, etc., rather than relying on the more basic online tools provided. The TAs were responsive when questions were posted in the discussion forums as well. Although some of them were a bit "curt" in their responses, I recognize they are probably getting a ton of questions (and many of the questions that I saw in the forums were clearly from folks who hadn't paid much attention to the lectures or readings, so I appreciate their frustration).

The time estimates for the course seem pretty exaggerated to me -- neither are really 7-week classes. That said, I appreciate that they are designed in a way to accommodate various schedules. People like me can sit down for big chunks of time and work through several "weeks" in one sitting, while others can approach more piecemeal. The course definitely lives up to its name in that regard.

As a side note, I really appreciated the "bonus" videos as well -- some of which look at various aspects of programming and computer science outside the Python world, and others which are just fun. They helped to both humanize the experience a bit, as well as set the class in a larger context.

Overall, the first two courses were an excellent experience, and I look forward to completing the specialization.

I recently completed the Python Data Structures course offered by the University of Michigan via Coursera, taught by Dr. Chuck. I must say that it was an exceptional learning experience that exceeded my expectations in many ways.

1. Dr. Chuck's teaching style is outstanding. His deep knowledge of Python and his ability to explain complex concepts in a clear and engaging manner made the learning process enjoyable and accessible.

2. The course content was comprehensive and well-structured.

3. Real-world examples and scenarios where Python data structures are commonly used, which helped me see the practical relevance of what I was learning.

4. The interactive programming environment, which made coding exercises and assignments seamless.

5. The course community and discussion forums were incredibly helpful.

In conclusion, I highly recommend the Python Data Structures course by Dr. Chuck and the University of Michigan via Coursera. The course content, Dr. Chuck's teaching style, and the interactive learning environment were truly exceptional. It provided me with a solid foundation in Python data structures and empowered me to take on more advanced programming challenges. Whether you are a beginner or an intermediate learner, this course is an excellent choice to enhance your Python skills.

Thank you

The approach that Dr Chuck takes to teaching Python has been the best experience when trying to learn a computer language. Everything he uses are building blocks to other very relevant areas. His book and lectures are very relevant. I have been analyzing data and building business intelligence solutions for years but I always wanted to learn data analysis with Python. The examples in Dr Chuck's course may seem trivial due to the file examples being used but the process is very relevant for other meaningful exercises. Also, I have to commend the instructor for his great sense of humor and ability to stay on topic. Finally the best thing about this course is that he will demonstrate WHY code will fail and how to debug. In other courses, I had to drop because the lecturer was giving only power point presentations without even going into an IDE to write code. I really look forward to completing the other sections.

Definitely the difficulty increased a little bit from the first part of this course. But it was lots of fun going through it.

On my review of the first part, I mentioned about the importance of reading through the chapters, watching the summary videos from Dr. Chuck, and then take the assessment. After taking this part of the course, that approach got reinforced. As the difficulty level increases, it will become extremely important that the learner fully understands the concepts being taught. While Dr. Chuck does an EXCELLENT job on those videos, there is only so much that can be packed in a less than 10 minute-long video.

Lists, Dictionaries, and Tuples are definitely powerful Data Structure concepts in Python and other languages. This course does an excellent job navigating though those in a simple manner.

Lastly, I second Dr. Chuck's suggestion of installing an IDE and run your Python code there before trying the online tool. Even though the online tool is very good, you will be able to play around with the code by making modifications to experiment. Also, you will get an opportunity to refine your code before running it in the online tool. Why this is important, because depending on the defect in your code, you can run into issues with the page.

Really enjoyed this class with Dr. Chuck. He made learning Python fun and interesting. I will not say it was easy because I had no programming skills at all prior to taking any of the Python courses. I now have some general knowledge that I can use to progress on and learn more Python or even other Programming courses. I would like to thank Coursera for making this accessible to everyone no matter what background or walk of life you are from. It really means a lot to me, because otherwise I would never have been able to go to the University of Michigan to learn these things without some type of financial help or assistance in just getting there period. I work a full time job about 70-80 hours a week. So being available online and at my own pace worked wonderfully. Thank you!

The presentations are very helpful and the course material is broken up into manageable portions. The instructor is clear and concise, with good clarity of speech. The supplemental free text is excellent and really should be utilized more than the course videos in order to extract the most value. The online code testing works intermittently- if you do not have success in testing your work online, you will likely have to reload a known working script in order to have successful completion of the assignment. This is best accomplished ( as instructed by Dr Chuck at the beginning)by installing your own IDE or other text based coding software and testing your work locally. I used NotePad+ which worked very well in conjunction with command line testing on a windows machine with Python installed. I found the work challenging enough to know that I need a good deal of practice before I can say that I am competent using Python. Thank you very much Dr Chuck for helping me to begin to learn Python!!

Anonymous completed this course.

So, nobody likes to read negative reviews on things that have a generally "high opinion" of. Certainly I am not the most educated either and as such I do take that in to consideration while writing this (I have no formal degrees). But I did want to share my personal opinion in an open manner, regardless of how against the grain it may be, to hopefully help someone out there that might be similar to myself. Here it is:

This is the second course in the specialization "Python for Everybody Specialization" and it picks up from where you left off in the first course (basically, this course finishes teaching the basics). Here is where I personally started to flounder in the water, so to speak, with learning Python. The courses come with a free book titled "Python for Everybody" and it is strongly recommended to read along with the courses as you progress. Well, I have found that there are contradictory bits of information between what Dr.Chuck teaches, and what the book is teaching. They are subtle contradictions that I couldn't put my finger on but I just knew they were there. What I mean is, the book will cover information you are supposed to use for that chapter and then when it comes time to complete an assignment, we are not supposed to use what we learned??! It created this feeling of being lost, and almost incompetent enough to understand the logic of the course. (I hope that this makes sense in what I am trying to convey).

I really am giving all the courses 110% and not leaving any stone un-turned. Truly something is missing in this course that is leaving me frustrated with myself, and the content. My recommend to anybody who plans to take this course, or the entire specialization, is to definitely learn the basics of python from somewhere else. Read other sources, do other exercises, start somewhere else AND THEN come here. Another reviewer here recommended there be more hands-on exercises with this course and I definitely agree. But the information given in this course is lacking something. Just to be clear though, Dr. Chuck is absolutely an awesome instructor -- his personality, his knowledge, his sense of humor, and his candidness.

I would like to add also that the book has practice exercises throughout the chapters. However, you will run in to some that you can not complete as even the staff on the forums tell you to just move on from. But more so, there is no answer key to accompany them! How are you going to know if you did something correct if you can't reference something that shows the correct way. The fact that staff on the forums even tell you to avoid some of the exercises speaks volumes in how much the book is lacking.

In summary: This course should be taken after you have some comfort in knowing a bit of python language, personally. That is because the information seems conflicting, there are not enough hands-on lessons, and you will run in to (what I think) contradictory undertones where you're taught one way but told to do a different way. Not a bad course by any stretch, but may leave you feeling lost. The course has definitely made me second guess myself because I feel so lost right now. I am reading another book on Python right now to help feel more comfortable about what I have learned, which up to this point doesn't feel like a lot. Furthermore, I am paying out of pocket for these courses and I am at a stand still with progression until I feel absolutely comfortable. The staff on the forums are being helpful to an extent, but they're only there to help you to an extent as there are thousands of other students who need help as well!

I really hope this reaches the right person. The person who wants a new career, eagerly wants to learn how to code, and passionately wants to create a better life for themselves without going the formal education route. Also, I hope this review is versatile enough to fit anybody's frame of mind regardless of education or life circumstances. Thank you for reading!

This course is so fantastic that I am a beginner with no prior programming and Python knowledge who can follow easily and learn things effectively. This course lays a very good foundation to Python basics. Dr Chunk, the instructor has a very good and professional voice and teaching style. I love to listen and learn from the class which the teacher is native speaker.

Also, thank you Dr Chunk if you may or may not see this review, I may not be able to have the chance to see you in my life, but your generosity and heart of teaching whose I am really really appreciated. The graduation part of the course means something to me since for a beginner of any skill, growth and advancement and recognition are all important forces to drive the momentum going forward. Thank you and take care.