Loading…
4
I bought a $50 online course on Python for beginners and it was a total mess
The course promised to teach the basics in a weekend, but the videos were from 2012 and half the code examples didn't run anymore. I spent more time searching forums for fixes than I did learning. The instructor's idea of a project was a text-based calculator that crashed if you typed a letter. After two days, I gave up and just used the free tutorials on the Python website instead. Has anyone else had a course turn out to be a complete waste of money?
3 comments
Log in to join the discussion
Log In3 Comments
mark_mitchell5mo ago
Ugh, that's the worst. It feels like every "quick and easy" course online is just repackaged junk from a decade ago. You're better off sticking with the official free stuff most of the time.
7
hannahm395mo ago
It's a shame your course was so out of date, but I've had the opposite luck. The one I bought last year had clear projects, like a simple web scraper and a data graphing tool, that all worked with current libraries. Maybe it's about checking the upload dates and reviews more carefully first. I get where mark_mitchell is coming from with the old junk, but there are some good paid ones that structure things better than free sites, at least for me.
4
scott.drew5mo ago
Totally feel that pain of buying a course and finding out it's ancient. Happened to me with a JavaScript one that still used var everywhere and old jQuery tricks. You're right about checking dates and reviews, but sometimes even that doesn't save you if the instructor just does a quick update note without fixing the actual videos. Makes you really appreciate the ones that actually keep their content fresh, even if you have to pay a bit.
2