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

4.8
stars
229,642 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

KK

Jun 26, 2020

Great introduction to Python and programming as a whole. Everything is broken down making it easy to understand. Had zero programming experience before and this class made it easy and fun to get into.

DU

Apr 26, 2021

Excellent, although, even without having any programming experience except some Visual Basic at school about ten years ago, in my opinion the course could have bee more difficult and the pace quicker.

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26 - 50 of 10,000 Reviews for Programming for Everybody (Getting Started with Python)

By Siddharth C

May 17, 2019

Great way to start. It is excellent for persons with no programming background

By SHASHANK A

May 21, 2020

Great introduction to Python and programming as a whole. Everything is broken down making it easy to understand. Had zero programming experience before and this class made it easy and fun to get into.

By Sonu K

Dec 27, 2019

Extremely basic but Dr. Chuck is so interesting that you never get bored. You can pass the course in a few days with minimum or even no programming knowledge. It's a good starting point for beginners.

By Terence P

May 11, 2016

To be honest, I thought the course stumbled and fell short. It was too basic and slow paced. The tone was a bit immature at times, and perhaps appropriate only for a grade school level classroom--not something for working professionals. And it's certainly not mature enough or challenging enough for a university class. Even if the goal were to teach those with no programming experience, it could accomplish that while providing more content, and making the content relevant.

Is the course worth the price? Hell no. If you do pay, you may feel very cheated at the end. The entire course can be reduced to 3 pages of notes. One would be better off checking into other free, online tutorials.

I'm not sure about the value of the videos titled "Office Hours." They all appeared as self-promotional behavior from the professor, as if to say, "hey look how great I am making this video in Paris." They're really nothing more than that. In one video, he corners a guest speaker at a conference, who appears annoyed after a few minutes and gives the professor a polite brush-off: "other people here would like to talk with me too." After all of these videos, you will ask yourself, "okay, why did Severance make me watch that?" "What was the point?" And you'll shrug your shoulders and say, "another waste of time."

By Steve M

Oct 20, 2015

We tried to use this class to teach a brown bag lunch for our employees interested in programming. Python is a great language but this class has a very low content to volume ratio (nobody wants to watch the instructor meet his life-time idol at a trade-show or watch the Intel versus AMD melt-down commercials over their lunch break).

By Connor B

Aug 6, 2017

I got a 95% and maybe I learned something but I can honestly say it wasn't because I watched the videos - the professor is seriously disconnected. Programming for "Everybody"? I know what I want to do with programming, but all the examples and small programs you write in this course give you no idea of what of someone outside science and math will ever use programming for.

By Vibhute y

Apr 29, 2020

Great introduction to Python and programming as a whole. Everything is broken down making it easy to understand. Had zero programming experience before and this class made it easy and fun to get into.

By Leonard W

Aug 18, 2020

If I were to compare the quality of this class to something I would say that this class is like a Chess class that spends 30 minutes explaining how pawns work and then asks you to move Knight to C3. "Wait, what piece is the Knight? How does the Knight move again? What's C3? Help!" That's basically what you will get out of this course.

This class is not a good choice for someone starting from the ground up. It's no so much that it doesn't cover entry-level concepts, rather it fails to elaborate on these concepts. The feedback from the quizzes doesn't point you in the direction where you can learn from your mistakes.

Likewise the assignments are often two steps ahead of the video, meaning that when error messages pop up in the auto-grader there is no way to figure out where you can learn what you did wrong. the videos will cover steps a, b, and c but the assignments expect you to know steps d, e, and f. This leaves students to discuss the answers in the forums or on other sites which I understand is frowned upon. However for "green as grass" students this is the only way to get anything done. And when students try to explain how the code actually works to each other their threads get locked down, only cryptic and vague responses to issues will remain. That is abysmal.

When I seem to get more help from other students in the comments than from the moderators in the forum, that is an issue. And lets talk about the moderator, there is only one. One for how many students? One for how many questions? Even if there was just 5 more people answering in the forums it would greatly improve the quality of this class. And those moderators should do more than just refer students back to the book which often provides insufficient information to tackle a problem.

This class needs to be reviewed extensively. I wouldn't recommend this course to anyone fresh that wants to try to learn code.

By Jonnalagadda R T

Jun 30, 2020

A well-designed course, especially for the beginners, who are really enthusiastic and passionate about programming. It really helps you to learn from scratch and it does not require any prerequisites.

By Afshan B

May 31, 2020

Easy to follow and not boring. The instructor breaks things down in simple form. The Coursera platform is sometimes a bit quirky but otherwise the content in this course I thought was quite excellent.

By David R J

Nov 5, 2018

I loved it! Dr. Chuck is extraordinary in his explanations. A great way to start on Python programming. As a person that hasn't programmed in years it was an encouraging and educational experience :-)

By nzete c

Sep 25, 2020

Extremely basic but Dr. Chuck is so interesting that you never get bored. You can pass the course in a few days with minimum or even no programming knowledge. It's a good starting point for beginners.

By Kseniia G

Jan 26, 2016

A really simple and what is the most important a clear course.

Really hope that next sessions are created in the same manner.

Will highly recommend to anyone who decides to start studying Python

By Rudra T

May 26, 2020

well i am thankful for such platform for providing and me to develop my programming skill, and also for respected sir Charles Russell Severance , the way he teaches i understand from basics of python.

By Abid S

Sep 29, 2020

Very good introduction to basic programming. Very easy for beginners in python who have already some programming background - but still extremely useful to quickly and efficiently learn python basics.

By Kunal

Jun 27, 2020

Great introduction to Python and programming as a whole. Everything is broken down making it easy to understand. Had zero programming experience before and this class made it easy and fun to get into.

By Haithem A B

Oct 29, 2020

Very good introduction to basic programming. Very easy for beginners in python who have already some programming background - but still extremely useful to quickly and efficiently learn python basics.

By ALISHA S P

Jun 9, 2021

Very good introduction to basic programming. Very easy for beginners in python who have already some programming background - but still extremely useful to quickly and efficiently learn python basics.

By SUTAPALLI S G

Jul 20, 2020

Great introduction to Python and programming as a whole. Everything is broken down making it easy to understand. Had zero programming experience before and this class made it easy and fun to get into.

By L. W

Oct 8, 2015

I am very disappointed with this programming course. The course lacks detail and deepth and could be taught in 45 to 60 minutes instead of 7 weeks. The quizzes and assignments were to easy and basic (solved in less than 5 minutes) and definitely not enough. Annoying was the overuse of colours in almost every video (almost everything was coloured - highlighting everything is just as usefull as highlighting nothing, green box with white text inside - did you try to read that on a different monitor than yours?), the pointless and useless doodles, smilies and whatsoever, wasting my time by watching you dispose your teabag/drinking tea or coffee/talking about your mug/etc., why do you even need to drink in a 20 minute-or-less video. The Tutor tried to loosen a dry topic. Mostly it wasn't my humor but I can live with that. I had hoped for more :(

By Perim G

Sep 11, 2020

I really liked the course. I just wish it was more practice heavy and the lectures were broken up more and there were quizzes during the lectures to keep you engaged more and make it more interactive.

By Syed A A

Aug 23, 2020

It was an awesome course , the instructor was very good at explaining it in a (hogward) like way .It was fun, i feel like anyone who doesn't have prior knowledge on programming can learn it with ease.

By ADITYA K D o E

Jul 15, 2020

i feel this isn't a course for beginners it should be for intermediates as i found the exercises very hard and moreover the instructor teaches basic stuff and the graded assignments are tough before some assignments he doesn't even discusses those type of problems. All i'm saying is anybody taking this course as a beginner without any prior knowledge in programming ,he/she would be discouraged.

By Kanei P

Jan 13, 2019

Most vague info, assignments don't even have anything to do with the videos, and the videos are not helpful because they don't give any examples. Terrible, and extremely hard. I do not recommend this course to beginners, or to anyone for that fact.

By Haydar M

Jul 2, 2021

Dr Chuck is amazing!! Great methods, and informative.. Gained knowledge and confidence. Definitely worth the time.. cant wait to start my next course with the University of Michigan, and with Dr Chuck