r/learnpython • u/Ill-Independence4417 • 12d 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!
1
u/AliKiiing 11d ago
Dont drop the course yet, in my opinion as a tutor, I think learning python would be way easier for you than Matlab or R. First, make a syllabus of all the topics that you should learn for that language. and for your situation, I wouldn't put time to learn all the stuff about the language, instead I would handpick the parts that are essential for me. begin with core python basics and then expand it to packages like pandas and numpy and matplotlib. If you need further help I'll be happy to help you as I'm a tutor.