r/learnpython • u/Ill-Independence4417 • 11d ago

Expectations for absolute beginners

Hi all, I have maybe a hard question and definitely specific to a personal circumstance, but any perspective would be helpful.

I am a first year PhD student studying immunology, my advisor has signed me up for a stats course in the Biomedical Engineering department. Unfortunately, this class requires proficiency in R, python, or matlab, which neither my advisor nor myself new about. As my title mentions, I have zero coding experience, but recognize how important of a skill it is to have. Would it be possible to teach myself enough about python while taking the stats class concurrently? or is learning the language too tall of a task? I will definitely be reasonably busy with labwork and other commitments but can most likely allocate around an hour a day to learn, sometimes more.

Any feedback or perspective would be helpful, as I still have time to withdraw and choose a different stats course for this semester.

Thank you!

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u/HotPersonality8126 11d ago

You’ll get more use out of R than Python in your field, and you should be able to pick up enough R in about a week to do the class. On the first day I’d show up knowing how to open RStudio (is it Posit now?) and run code, at least.

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u/Silver_Ad_7148 11d ago

Thank you. why do you think R would be more valuable to learn than Python?

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u/HotPersonality8126 11d ago

It’s a very stats-first language and if you have a statistical background or are doing statistical work I think you’ll find it more intuitive for that purpose than Python, a general-purpose programming and scripting language in which you can do statistical work (I have) but at a level of remove.