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Learner Reviews & Feedback for Programming for Everybody (Getting Started with Python) by University of Michigan

4.8
stars
226,322 ratings

About the Course

This course aims to teach everyone the basics of programming computers using Python. We cover the basics of how one constructs a program from a series of simple instructions in Python. The course has no pre-requisites and avoids all but the simplest mathematics. Anyone with moderate computer experience should be able to master the materials in this course. This course will cover Chapters 1-5 of the textbook “Python for Everybody”. Once a student completes this course, they will be ready to take more advanced programming courses. This course covers Python 3....
Highlights
High quality instructor

(1484 Reviews)

Introductory course

(4203 Reviews)

Top reviews

GL

Feb 28, 2016

Excellent for a beginner!! Professor Severance follows a very smooth and efficient method of teaching that reduces anxiety and increases passion for learning!! Recommended to anyone starting Python!!!

DJ

Oct 19, 2017

Dr. Chuck has a special ability to teach programming to people who doesn't necessarily have programming background. This is rare among programming teachers, and shows that he is an excellent educator.

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326 - 350 of 10,000 Reviews for Programming for Everybody (Getting Started with Python)

By Dennis P

May 10, 2022

I loved it. Dr. Chuck has this process down perfectly. He needs to get a stylus, instead of trying to write with that mouse. This is my first sucessful online course. The University of Michigan has done an exceptional job on the web interface. Since enrolling in this course, I have obtained a pretty good list of other resources. I receive daily emails on code snippets, I'm completing my second course in DataCamp and I'm burning through a number of popular textbooks on the subject matter. With the wealth of resources I have found out there, Dr. Chuck must have a more extensive list of resources that he finds valuable, even indispensible. The resources page needs a "Dr. Chuck's python programming picks" page. Thanks again, send more code, see you in the next class.

By Limin ( L

Sep 25, 2015

Dr. Chuck is the most encouraging and entertaining teacher I have ever met!!! He really makes learning about computer and programming easy and fun! And he makes a great Prof. Snape impersonation! :-)

Most importantly, Dr. Chuck intentionally included many mistakes in his teaching materials. As a self-taught programmer who has struggled on one's own, I believe this is the most valuable part of the lectures. The students get to understand from the very beginning how to read error messages and tracebacks, how to debug, how not to be intimidated by mistakes and failures, and how to become a confident programmer. This should be THE teaching model for programming in any language!

Thank you, Dr. Chuck! And I look forward to learning more from you in our follow-up courses!

By Mel B G

Aug 3, 2020

This was my very first experience programming. I come from a social sciences & journalism background and although I've always wanted to learn a bit of coding, the idea of it always kinda scared me. But Charles Severance is an amazing teacher and the first chapters are quite intuitive. I wished that maybe teaching assistants were a bit more present, because it can be extremely discouraging to get stuck in some exercises and not receive timely support. When this happened to me I almost quit - but thankfully the learning community is quite active and other colleagues were able to support me as well. My advice is to go for it and and reach out for help if you need it! I recommend it to all programming enthusiasts, who wished they knew anything at all about python.

By Ramesh M

Jun 28, 2019

This is an excellent beginner's course. The teacher Charles Severance is amazing. This was my first MOOC and I am glad it was this one. I had self-taught myself a bit of programming earlier so none of the material came as a complete surprise, but I am sure even beginners can follow everything very easily. I plan to complete the entire specialisation based on my experience with this course. The only gripe I have is that because I was auditing the course I could not see all the assignments. I can understand not getting graded or provided a certificate if I am not paying for it, but at least I should be able to see the assignments and solve it on my own. Right now I can only see the quizzes but not the programming assignments. Highly recommended course!

By TEO

Aug 18, 2018

Wonderful coursera course by Prof Charles Severance (a.k.a. Dr Chuck). He speaks clearly, explains well, draws well, and is very witty too ! ( Wearing a soft-felt floppy hat to emphasis quirky Python syntax). Altogether Dr Chuck is a very engaging and instructor who makes learning fun. His assignments are also well-designed, especially those in the Auto-Grader (full of trick questions which I had to keep trying before I hit on the right answers when I saw through the "tricks" which made me chuckle) I am very happy that Dr Chuck is my instructor for my first coursera course which rekindles my joy in learning. I will continue learning programme online, because my first online programming course is very well-taught by Dr Chuck. Thank you very much, Dr Chuck !

By Ondrej P

Apr 11, 2020

Great for beginners. I had no experience with programming at all before I started this course. The lector is amazing. Make it understandable even for non-native speakers.

The graded assignment are sometimes big challenge. I spent sometimes 2 hours to get them done (I made stupid mistakes in the code). The Teacher would have it done in 5 minutes for sure. What I like is they push you to thing by yourself and solve all the problems by yourself ( you can use of course the video lecture ). I hate it on the beginning, that there is no tutorial (step by step) for every assignment. But in the end I'm really grateful for this and kind of proud on me. It gave me motivation and enthusiasm to next classes.

Thank you University of Michigan and Coursera for this Course.

By LiuShu

Apr 12, 2020

I am totally fulfilled by learning the course of Python, programming for everybody. It brings me a brand new world and aids me to concentrate myself on the basic programming knowledge. The programming skills that I learned from this course , the relevant reading materials and bonus videos are quite intriguing and these are an efficient way to link individuals with the outside world. Moreover, the study atmospheres and the teaching settings are pretty scientific and rigid which can help to promote my efficiency on getting started with Python. I would like to express my gratitude for Doctor Charles, for his dedication, we the students of Coursera can get in touch with the first-hand or the latest information on Python. Much appreciated, thanks a lot. : )

By Jeevan K

Jul 18, 2017

A really good place to start learning about programming. Simple, precise and easy to implement. I would highly recommend it to anyone who wants to learn programming / python (w/o any background in programming) or someone who wants to start learning more about how we can use programming languages like Python as an effective and efficient tool for data analysis. If you are looking for motivation to commit to learning more about programming , data analysis / to understand importance of being competent in programming and dabbling in tech related studies - just watch (especially the last few minutes of) the Bonus videos in Week 5 Interview wirh Massimo Banzi: The Arduino and Week 2 Interview with Eben Upton: The RaspBerry Pi. Thanks a lot Dr. Chuck and team!

By Wahid T

Jul 8, 2021

The goal of the course is to introduce students to Python Version 3.x programming using hands on instruction. It will show how to install Python and use the Spyder IDE (Integrated Development Environment) for writing and debugging programs. The approach will be to present an example followed by a small exercise where the learner tries something similar to solidify a concept. At the end of each module there will be an exercise where the student is required to write simple programs and submit them for grading. It is intended for students with little or no programming background, although students with such a background should be able to move forward at their preferred pace. The course is four modules long and is designed to be completed in four weeks.

By Abraham E

Jan 3, 2016

Finally made programming "click" for me after trying several courses. I feel very, very enthusiastic about this course. I would recommend this to anyone who is computer literate enough to be studying online in the first place. Dr. Charles Severance is an expert in the subject (as far as my newbie self can tell) and he is clearly, beyond the shadow of a doubt, an expert in the delivery of this sort of complex material in a way that beginners can understand. He is also charismatic enough to be pleasant to watch, which matters since most of the course are videos of him talking.

Besides being easy to understand, the material becomes useful and real-world applicable marvelously quickly. This is really a phenomenal course. I highly, highly recommend it.

By Azamat D

Mar 4, 2020

I liked the course.

I did it very fast as I do have a programming background.

I liked the lecturer and the way of how the lectures material was provided. However, the course could have been improved if some extra materials like code listings or some stuff like "python reserved words" chart were saved and available along with the video materials.

You can find all of these in internet or while reviewing the video materials for sure, however once you have to recall smth from the course very fast - you have to either go through video or go through google. It is not a problem, it is just some kind of UX flaws as of me.

In general, I liked the course and I would highly recommend it for anyone who wants to feel the taste of programming in Python. Thanks!

By Debabrat D

Jun 6, 2021

The course is really perfect for a beginner as it discusses about the most rudimentary elements. Charles Severance is a wonderful mentor who makes it easy for a noob(who has barely any idea of computer science) when he touches on basics of computer architecture, breaking each line and element of code and what is does in background to the CPU,memory and stuff. I did enjoy all the bonus videos on chatting with many computer pioneers and above all, I would like to say that this is the best basic course on python ever as no one has ever explained it before so minutely word by word. If you are wondering about what is python, then please go through this course for a fun ride, literally. It never goes boring. Also do checkout the pdf and exercises.

By Raúl C

Oct 9, 2016

Carecía absolutamente de cualquier conocimiento relacionado con la programación y este curso me ha permitido acceder de un modo sencillo y muy divertido a los primeros conceptos de un lenguaje informático, de modo que una vez concluidos los 5 primeros temas, por fin comprendo, a grandes rasgos, el funcionamiento de un programa y alcanzo a vislumbrar con mayor precisión la complejidad que entraña el desarrollo de las instrucciones necesarias para su correcto funcionamiento.

Lo cierto es que muero de ganas por seguir aprendiendo más y más, me gustaría dejar constancia de mis mas sincero agradecimiento a las personas que han hecho posible este curso y a todos aquellos que se han molestado en poder facilitar el material didáctico para su estudio.

By Imran K T

Jul 14, 2020

Well, I wanted to learn python though I am from electrical engineering. Though I am not from computer science background, it was quite easy to learn python by this course. I liked most about the course that the design of the course. Because of this, any non-computer science backgrounded people can learn python effectively and easily. The Instructor was good enough to make me learn things interestingly. The way he explains python is effective to catch things to my brain. I loved to do the assignments, I loved solving these programming problems. Doing these assignments actually helped me to learn the lecture provided & implement the knowledge of python. This was my first course taken online and I am pretty much happy about Coursera's courses.

By Kry

Sep 24, 2016

People use Python for many purposes: to make games, build web services, to solve business problems, to work with sensors, drivers and robots. Python is also used heavily in scientific fields for academic research and applied work.

Python is an incredibly efficient language: your programs will do more in fewer lines of code than many other languages would require.

Py4inf and Python explained by C. Servance, is a great developing of the foundations in programming (first two courses) that will serve you well for the rest of your life, as well as a course that will give you a sort of try to understanding of what great things python can do for you.

I strongly recommend this course for anybody, who wants to start with informatics.

By Vandana A

May 1, 2020

The course "Python for Everybody" is a wonderful course and provides sufficient knowledge about the Python Language. It helps the learner to know the basics of Python including Variable, data-types, expressions, operators, loops, conditional statements, functions etc. Also the explanation given by the professor Chuck is very easy and understandable. He used very good examples to get you into the flow with the programming. The quiz and the assignments are also very helpful to check our understanding and revise the things learnt so far during the course work. And the best thing about the course is that a person with no prior experience in programming can understand the whole course very comfortably. Really enjoyed learning this course.

By Osvaldo R

Mar 18, 2017

I really enjoyed this course. The material was well organised and the video lectures interesting and engaging. The course is an introduction to Python and as such it is suitable for beginners, even those with limited previous programming experience such as myself. Dr Severance is very good at explaining the contents and illustrating the theory with simple and clear examples. Something that I liked as well is the free eBook made available by Dr. Severance that covers pretty much the contents of the entire specialization. I also enjoyed additional videos made available containing interviews with famous IT professionals such as Pooja Sankar, Massimo Banzi (the inventor of Arduino) and especially Guido van Rossum, the inventor of Python.

By Muneeb F

Nov 13, 2020

When you set a new goal for yourself, something new to learn. I believe the most important thing is to understand the basics as good as you can. I would like to create an analogy here, You need your hands to do different kinds of tasks, like eating, driving, playing a game etc. So the stronger your hands are, the better you would be able to perform different kinds of tasks. This course is like working on your hands and making them stronger, so that later on you are able to perform different tasks, depending on which direction your interest leads you.

So its an absolute green light from my side.

P.S ( Dr. Chuck the background music that you use in the start of Bonus videos is extremely annoying, you have a very bad taste in Music :-D)

By Aparna M

Dec 26, 2016

Prof. Charles Severance is one of the most awesome professors I've learnt from. He teaches extremely well, adds a Dr. Chuck touch to it with his impeccable sense of humor, and gets his message through to us students. (AND.. I absolutely love Snape; may Alan Rickman's soul rest in peace).

I am looking forward to the next part of Programming for Everybody (with Data Structures in Python). The thing I appreciate most about this course is that it is completely open to all, from the quizzes and grading to all the course material. This way, people like me can learn happily learn such in-demand subjects & programming languages, without having to worry about paying a fee. I would like to extend a sincere thanks to you all for the same.

By Seth P

Aug 12, 2016

I have tried to take a few of the free online courses in Python and none compare to the teaching methods of this course. It moves so eloquently that anyone can learn Python through this course, even me. It does not jump to long confusing lines of code or randomly introduce functions/features not discussed. Rather, it sticks to small lines of code to get the point across until you are comfortable with it. the tools achieved in this course are valuable for anyone in any field needed to analyze and/or manipulate data. I have recommended this course to friends and family attempting to learn. Thank you so much Dr. Severance!

Note - If you are already familiar with Python this course would not be worth while; it is a beginner course.

By Minas-Marios V

Jun 10, 2017

A very solid and useful course for anyone interested in learning about programming in general. The professor is very engaging and quite easy to follow, he has an amazing way of explaining things and making everything look so interesting. The online book that accompanies the course is also very well-written, and is a welcome addition to the already informative video lectures.

The only drawback I might add is that the course is very simple for experienced programmers that want to get an introduction to Python. I believe though that the next courses in the specialization will cover more advanced topics, and that sacrifice had to be made since it is after all an introductory course aimed at people with zero programming experience.

By Deleted A

Dec 23, 2015

it was a great course. Mr. Chuck, knows how to teach quality material to the masses. i would only suggest that on the programming assignments, it would be best if the instructor doesn't write half of the code. one reason is that having some of the code written would make that student think that the piece of code provided must be a part of the whole code. and as i worked on the programming assignments i realized that much of the code provided wasn't needed, in fact it took me longer than necessary to solve the assignments because i kept using the code provided, and upon solving the assignment none of the code that was provided was a part of the code i wrote. ....

on to the next course. Data Structure.

thank you coursera and UM.

By Caroline

Oct 10, 2019

This course was a very nice introduction to programming in Python and it helped me understanding the way we should think in order to program successfully. The material provided is clear and well-organized, and the teacher is very good. Moreover, the step-by-step assignments are very useful as they make you open your mind in a gradual and confident way. When I was at university, where I attended some preliminary courses about other programming languages, it often happened that the level required in the exercises was instead too high with respect to the material provided during the lectures. Summing up, I really appreciated this first course, although I would suggest to add some other assignment to practice a little bit more.

By Shuo-Chieh H

Aug 7, 2016

The professor made the content easy to understand. As a beginner, this course introduces programming in a very thoughtful way. It keeps me focus on the right things so that I did not get freaked out at the beginning when the working environment looks very different from the experience of an end-user. And it step by step build up my understanding in programming elements. I signed up this course with rather strong motivation (my ultimate goal is to run statistical simulation and develop statistic packages for other users), so when I see the course introducing the elements I did not understand at all before, I can see the power behind those programming building blocks. Hence, this course really made me wanting to program more!

By Joanna G

Oct 2, 2017

This course gives a great foundation for understanding how to synthesize and read basic Python code and functions. It sets you up for learning how to work with data in the following course. I am a GIS student currently in a Geocomputation class with a massive learning curve of experience with coding/compsci, GIS, web development and so forth. Going into geocomp with this foundation was a lifesaver and the only reason I can follow along in class. Charles Severance explains things in a way that even complete novices (me) can understand. The worked exercises videos were a great help when I got stuck. I've referenced these videos for my class multiple times. I find it valuable that the skills I've learned are so transferable.