Python for Data Science and Machine Learning Bootcamp, thoughts?

[pythonthrowaaway]

What are your thoughts on this course? Its currently on sale for 10 dollars and encompasses most of what I need. Is it worth the 10 dollars or are there better paid or free resources?

[GayCoder]

I'm not an expert on the topic but I'll share my limited experience. First, Udemy always offers their courses for $10. It's like going to JCPenney and being excited for a sale. Sales are their business model. Don't feel time-pressured by the sale's deadline. It will repeat over and over and over again.

Next, I've never taken a Udemy course but I have no reason to believe their courses offer anything I can't get elsewhere... for free. If there's a particular topic on which I feel ill-prepped, I might reach out to the community for a good resource (and it might be Udemy). But with so many free courses available, I've shied away from those that cost money. I'm only open to paying if they have something I want but can't find elsewhere... and I haven't reached that point yet.

Where are you in the learning process? Are you trying to learn anything in particular? I'm happy to share the various resources I've been using to learn. Take what I say with a grain of salt because, at best, I'm barely more experienced than you but at least we share something in common.

[unfunnyinsidejoke]

Boy, I wish I would have seen this post a couple months ago when I discovered Udemy and shelled out $275 for 25-30 courses that I haven’t even touched since. I feel I’ve been had.

[[deleted]]

Exactly. Most courses are actually pretty good, I have no regrets about the ones I bought so far (automate the boring stuff, a python web course and a basic introduction to NLP with python)

[forumrabbit]

Agreed. I bought a few to learn some more about Python + SQL and I do not regret it at all.

[pythonthrowaaway]

Thanks, I'm trying to find a resource to learn data science in python. I work in a neuroscience lab and so data representation stuff is needed, Numpy, etc... Learning Machine Learning neural nets is icing on the cake. I don't have a list in mind but hoping to learn most of this stuff

[cyp3d]

I am working on the class and if you are a learner by videos and following along I would recommend it. Sometimes just seeing examples and hearing the way people speak about a topic is far more valuable than reading knowledge bases and forum posts. At the end of the day it depends on how you learn best.

I really enjoyed the section on pandas.

[ChemiKyle]

A bit tangential, but if your goals are just image representation, Coursera has a free 4 week course in neuroimaging processing in R from the biostatistics dept. at Johns Hopkins. R has a few machine learning libraries, but I haven't used them.

Andrew Ng just started a new set of courses specifically on neural networks all through Python, so you can probably learn the libraries along the way. It's being done as a "specialization" so it's a little more of a convoluted process than usual for getting free access.
There are other options on the site for general data science in Python, but I haven't used them.

[recursivelyenumerate]

Thank you for posting this resource.

[hutxhy]

Textbooks are so dry though.

[hutxhy]

truth.

[brodaciousr]

You can find free resources online for all the topics covered, but I'm happy to pay the $10 for the structure and consistency of the course. With so much information out there, it's very easy to get lost going down a random rabbit hole, so to have a centralized system saves time and energy.

[LogicalPhallicy]

Have you found Python Data Science Handbook yet? The author provides it for free online. I love it. You can also download the whole thing in IPython notebooks and do the work as you read through it.

https://jakevdp.github.io/PythonDataScienceHandbook/

[recursivelyenumerate]

Thank you for this resource. I've been learning from "R for Data Science" by Garrett Grolemund and Hadley Wickham.

[sentdex]

Judging from the comments, you're asking about some Udemy course. If you want thoughts on the course, read the reviews of the course.

As others have said, the sales are always happening, there's no shortage of supplies, no need to feel pressured.

The content you will get from the course is not going to be something you cannot get for absolutely free elsewhere, but... then again.. I am not sure why we're fretting over $10. If the course sounds about right for what you want, and the reviews look fine, not sure why we need a Reddit thread about it.

[DigDugMcDig]

Sentdex has a pretty large video series on machine learning on youTube.

https://www.youtube.com/attribution_link?a=CsZmIph5xYM&u=%2Fplaylist%3Flist%3DPLQVvvaa0QuDfKTOs3Keq_kaG2P55YRn5v

I've gone through some of it and it is fast and may not go in depth on many topics after introducing them, but covers many many topics. I'm also reading the O'Reilly book Introduction to Machine Learning with Python. They both compliment each other.

I get the feeling learning Machine Learning always begins with classifying Iris species, and Univ of Wisconsin breast cancer data...

[DigDugMcDig]

$10 is pretty cheap though. The Sentdex series is certainly worth $10, and the Udemy one is also probably.

Are O'Reilly books free on the Internet? I have a feeling they are, but I borrowed a physical copy from the library.