Python Programming for Everybody course on Coursera

A course on programming

Are you interested in programming? Would you like to learn something about it, but don’t know where to start? Here’s an awesome beginner class for you!

Programming for Everybody (Python) is an upcoming free online course about programming in Python. The course teaches you the basics you need to know to start writing your own programs. The class aims to make programming possible for everybody, so you don’t need any special skills or knowledge to take the course. Everything about the process will be explained to you in detail.

What will this programming course include?

The course is 11 weeks long. It will take around 2-4 hours of work a week. Each week there will be a lecture of about an hour long. The course will teach the following topics:

  • variables and expressions
  • conditional code
  • functions
  • loops and iteration
  • strings
  • files
  • lists
  • dictionaries
  • tuples
  • regular expressions

There will be quizzes and assignments, as well as optional assignment to earn extra credit. The course will teach you concepts of programming, so as a result you will be able to write programs that will solve small but complete problems.

All the materials for the course are free, even the textbook. You can download the textbook right now to start learning earlier if you want to. It’s also possible to purchase a paper variant of the book.

Who teaches this programming course?

The instructor of the course is Charles Severance, an instructor of various technology-oriented courses and an author of books and articles on computing. Charles is very enthusiastic about his work. He says he’s convinced that anyone can learn to program. In addition to the goal of teaching you the basics of programming he has three other goals. The first goal is to teach you how to take an online course on programming, as without this preparation other programming classes might be difficult for you. The second goal is to teach you how to help others learn how to program, so that it would be possible to teach programming globally. The third goal is to provide you with a kit of free and open material that you can use to teach this class to your own students locally.

What did other students think about the course Programming for Everybody (Python)?

Other students absolutely loved the course, calling it “the friendliest introduction to programming”. They noted that the instructor was “super clear, engaging, modern, and just plain awesome!” They say that the course won’t teach you any complicated programming, but will prepare you for more difficult programming courses.

I want to take this course on programming, what should I do?

Go to the course page to enroll in the course.