This course is a step above beginner, and more detailed explanations and defining why certain lines are code are used are needed to cater to actual beginners. Variables are suddenly introduced without any explanation, key words are casually mentioned without any context or definition supplied. You need to break this down if this is supposed to be for beginners.

Also, the pacing is weird. The first week you are given an actual week to complete the sections (6 in total with multiple parts in addition to learning 5 units of Python on Code Academy) plus a couple extra days with the quiz due. However, then the following "weeks" get shorter and shorter, despite requiring as much material as the first week to get through (and an addition of 3 units of Python on Code Academy) to the point that by Week 4, you only have 2 days to complete all the assignments, units, and quiz.

Finally, in regards to quizzes, it would be helpful to see the correct answers if you get questions wrong. Some questions, even after I passed the quiz, I had no idea why my answer was incorrect.

This course has you perform work through the Stepik platform, which then directs you to codeacademy to learn Python2. The content of Stepik is reasonable enough, but occasionally makes huge leaps in the coding and bio content that one is expected to know. However, the real problem for me was with the glitchiness of codeacademy. As someone with limited coding experience that is totally new to the Python language, I absolutely need this learning. However, I have reached an impassable point where even when using the website's given solution to 'get unstuck', I can't move forward even though both my code and the given code run and output as required! Multiple computer engineers and CS majors from my department have checked the solution, and just been baffled.

This course is a great idea, but is totally dysfunctional for new learners.

I think this is a fascinating topic, but NOT as advertised. I have studied computer science for two years and consider myself confident in coding for my level. However, this course is not for beginners. A very strong coding skillset is needed for this course. Also, the time commitment is very underestimated. I worked through around 30% of the Week 1 modules, which were supposed to take an estimated 4.5 hours total, and it took me around 3 hours. At this rate, I don't think I will be able to finish the class and retain the material. I would love a more basic approach to bioinformatics for those who can not commit 40 hours to this course.

You have to be very dedicated and have high frustration tolerance if you are actually a beginner in programming. This course expects you to complete the Codecademy Python Course in advance (which will take you several weeks) but it still won´t be enough to really keep up with the bioinformatics concepts that are introduced. Also, the explanations in the course itself are very, very rudimental, although the optional videos do a better job here.

All in all, I am glad I had the possibility for learning something new and I fought myself through the course but please don´t believe that it´s suitable for beginners.

Not one i would recommend to a beginner. I feel not so well by this course haha. It was tough, very tough for a biologist [ Primatologist/Zoologist ] like me but ofcourse i fought through & finished it. However, if any beginner wants to start this, i would recommend they learn Python atleast to the advanced level before approaching this course. That would make this fine. Also, the hours denoted to all weeks are not correct. Some weeks have 4 hours mentioned as the required time but those were the weeks that required me to put in 16+ hours. Cheers for the efforts to the team though.

Thanks!

As a biologist without any programming skills, I found this course REALLY difficult. That was totally unexpected as the description of the course states that no programming skills are necessary. I thought really hard to learn the Python by resolving Codeacademy exercises while trying to implement the language to solve the book problems. In other words, I felt that the platforms used in this course were very disconnected. In my opinion, it would be easier to learn python by directly learning how to solve simple biological questions instead of complicate ones presented in the book.

This course replies heavily (almost entirely) on codeacademy to teach the coding material. Unfortunately, the material chosen for this course does not line up with the courses supplied by codeacademy. If you want to follow the lesson plans as outlined here, you need to do multiple extra courses on codeacademy before you can reach the material discussed in the coursera lesson. As such, the estimated time for completion is drastically lower than the actual time to completion for people new to coding.

Stepik and codeacademy aren't the friendliest options for beginners. You can see that by the number of success on each Stepik exercise and the decreasing number of students each week.

I managed to undersand a great part of it mainly because I wasn't a beginner at either Biology nor Programming, but still, the programming part was hard.

This isn't really a course for beginners. I learned a few things about biology, sure. But if I hadn't already known Python code, I wouldn't have been able to figure out half of the exercises in this course.

This course is do-able if you're willing to put in the effort, but it is not an easy introductory course to bioinformatics.

The quizzes were extremely annoying, they weren't hard but for example with the final quiz: I would properly calculate the normalized probabilities but every possible version of me rounding it was incorrect. I proceeded to show a friend who has a PhD in mathematics and he was equally stressed by questions like this

The description of the course is misleading, you do have to know Python in order to fully focus on the biological problem. Requires more than 8 hrs per each coding section if you are beginner. Wouldn't mark the class as Beginner.

The course is hard for whose major is biology because there is no detailed explanation regarding algorithms. I do not recommend this course to people who have not studied programming.

the content is good but it is definitely not for beginners. the course content requires a lot of coding knowledge and basics of molecular biology to understand

The external tool was too complex for a beginner in programming, which defeats the purpose of the exercise. This made me lose interest very quickly.

Can be more interactive with videos for beginners for more comprehensive understanding. Otherwise, wonderful, highly informative content!

Very complex for students. Coding wise very dificcult to follow for beginners, but with perserverance you can understant the message.

Programming part not well explained and too difficult- it can clearly be seen from the comments that many people have the same issues

no 6 quiz of week 4 is bad in answering every time ans submit the right ans i got the wrong in after assessment. it may be improved

It's really helpful and amazing for those who know basic statistics, maths and programming. But it's not for beginners at all

Gets quickly very confusing and difficult. Also, do the Codeacademy Python class before even starting this course.

Programming Level is NOT FOR BEGINNERS. The Codecademy was useless when compared to the coding assignments given.

the coding aspect were neither clear nor easy enough for a biologist who is new to programming to grasp

Steptik images in week 4 aren't showing up which means its impossible to understand what's going on

in my opinion, this course is hard for beginners. i do not have computer background in programming

Too complicated for a beginner's course, the quizzes don't match the stepik chapters.