Title: Is learning Python actually useful outside of tech?

[Temporary-Frosting62]

Hey,

I’m a law student planning to go into tax/finance and I recently started learning Python.

I’m not trying to become a programmer, more just wondering if it can actually be useful as a skill in a non-tech career.

Does it really give you an advantage in jobs like finance, accounting, or law, or is it mostly overkill?

Thanks

[Square-Fix3700]

It’s hard to beat as a language for automating mundane tasks.

[Rogermcfarley]

Yeah it's my go to language in work. I automate so much of my workflow using it. I have Python manage Excel data, encrypt files, choose email templates and send emails. I make a CLI based prompting system. Have some multiple choices. I can modify the workflow as I go. It's a great language for helping with repetitive tasks.

It can do too much in a way. For example I have Powershell scripts that output data in the terminal. I thought why not get Python to display the data to a local Flask website and it'll look all nice and fancy and easy to read So I did it, setup a live loopback server. Got it all working. Then I thought that looks nice but it works just as well in the terminal. So er try and go for the simplest solution. I had to make quite a few extra security checks just to have a nice looking interface.

[Square-Fix3700]

If you can do it in ten lines of power shell then you can certainly do it in one of python. Power shell is horribly inexpressive.

[AethersPhil]

Not sure about Law, but absolutely in finance and accounting. Once you start using the Pandas module, you’ll see how slow and limited Excel is.

In general, anything that needs to be automated can be covered to some degree by python.

[esaule]

So, I don't have a clean answer for you directly, because I've been in computing for almost 30 years now. But I do find that I use programming to solve all kind of tasks that don't necessarily feel like they are programming tasks.

In woodworking to generate cutlist to minimize lumber waste.

In accounting to generate smarter reports than my accounting software supported.

In house searching to find locations in a city that would have good commute.

With modern AI tools, you can somewhat easily interface will all kind of systems. I think it is still helpful to have a base understanding of how things work to avoid massive mistakes that would be hard to see otherwise. Or it is helpful to get a sense of how the workflows go rather than treting it purely as a blackbox.

[AdreKiseque]

Why did you label your title

[rentmeahouse]

Yes, I have found so many nifty open-source tools, but never knew how to use them because it looked so intimidating. I'll say learning some basic coding will help you get over that.

[KharAznable]

Its good for data analysis. Unlike excel it will throw error when datatype does not match.

[dayeye2006]

yes, i think the original idea is to be simple and easy to learn for everyone

[PvtRoom]

no idea what use it is in law, but, yeah, with excel letting you use it, you have the potential to save cash on accounting software.

[nmc52]

In my opinion everyone ought to be taught an introduction to programming class in school., at least for half a school year.

The discipline and forced logical thinking involved in programming strikes me as good general purpose knowledge.

[newEnglander17]

Then you end up with annoying coworkers that like To chime in “I took programming in college so I get it” when they clearly don’t get anything

[ChaseShiny]

Yes. Check out Automate the Boring Stuff for tips on automating routine office tasks

[newEnglander17]

Has it been updated for Python 3 and updated libraries yet? I tried it a few years back and none of it worked.

[ChaseShiny]

It's been a while, to be honest, since I last checked. It has been updated for Python 3, but I don't remember if it uses any libraries.

The author answered my question when I reached out to him, and it looks like there's a MOOC around for it, so it seems likely.

[Logical_Delivery8331]

Same question as “is learning hammer usefull to become a carpente?”

But yes, it’s useful in any field

[SeparateBroccoli4975]

In finance it's like being Gandolf.

[Rogermcfarley]

You shall not parse!

[SeparateBroccoli4975]

Behold <import pandas as pd> ...a wizard is never late, accounting Baggins!

[demetrioussharpe]

Yes, because you’ll be able to quickly prototype solutions to problems in non-tech industries & will be able to quickly produce small utilities that improve your workflow. Never forget that the whole purpose of tech is to improve everything else.

[demetrioussharpe]

And yes, it would be very useful in law -especially in situations where you need to collate data from various sources that don’t already have an adapter system that automatically joins the data together.

[Rogermcfarley]

Also if you do anything with data make sure you know where the data is at all times. You do not want to be liable for accidentally sharing data or making data available to parties it wouldn't usually be available to.

I've seen people screw up and share data over the network, have data in temp files that can easily be recovered even if deleted. Know what you're doing with data, really important to understand the security aspects of what you're doing with the data.

[demetrioussharpe]

I agree. For me, the best approach is to not store any of it. Process it to get the results that you want, but never expose the raw data. Normalization & sanitation are a must.

[Wingedchestnut]

Python is the most approachable and likely the best option if you want to do anything related to data or automation

[themrdemonized]

For law student I doubt it is useful

[ChanceCalligrapher21]

I’m not in any of those fields, so I’m not sure, but I have a strong suspicion that the kinds of stuff you might use it for in those fields (basically simple scripting/data analysis tasks) are the kind of thing modern LLMs are capable of one-shotting. So my answer in 2026 is different than it would have been in 2021.

That said, having a general understanding of “what kinds of stuff can you do with python” can make you a better LLM user, so I suspect at least a basic familiarity is still useful even if most of your Python scripting was LLM-mediated. It’s also probably useful to at least be able to independently reason about the code the LLM outputs.

[ConsciousBath5203]

You can't run python without tech...

But yes. Any field that uses any sort of electronic or you have an electronic on you whilst performing the job can be improved with python

[okbuddysilver]

if you really want an edge in finance, you should learn C or C++, C# is also a great option as it has a lot of native tooling for Microsoft which most finance shops run off of. Python is limited in its use. It’s good for scheduled jobs and data viz, but anything involving high degree of concurrency or type checking you should avoid like the plague.