ZOD: Are coding courses a waste of money?
Zen of Data Science #5
The Big Idea
“Are coding courses a waste of money?”
There seem to be two schools of thought on buying coding courses.
I see it on Reddit when someone asks “What’s the best course to learn _____?”
Inevitably someone says “Just use free resources.” or “everything you need is on the internet for free”.
This is flawed thinking for a few reasons:
1. You don’t know what you don’t know: If you don’t know what resources to pick, or technologies to learn, you might end up with a Frankensteins monster set of skills because your learning is all over the place.
2. It’s time-consuming: Searching YouTube trying to find which videos to follow can be overwhelming. There are thousands of options.
3. Coding courses aren’t THAT expensive: Sure, there are blatant ripoffs out there (like Udacity charging over $200 a month 🤮), but some courses and platforms are reasonably priced.
So what should you do… free courses, or shell out some money for the paid ones?
Well some of the reasons I like paid courses better are that they tend to be more organized. You don’t have to search for one video for JOINS, then another for Subqueries, and so on.
Another reason is they sometimes, (not always), are better quality than free courses.
So while the best resources I’ve taken are paid courses, they weren’t that expensive!
I use Udemy (my favorite platform) and the membership is $40/month.
And I also use DataCamp, which is $150/year, and well worth it.
(No I’m not sponsored by either of these, I just like them).
But if you don’t have any spare money right now, there’s one free resource that I recommend, and that’s Alex the Analyst’s free YouTube Data Analyst Bootcamp:
It’s all-inclusive, and probably one of the best, if not the best, free resources I’ve ever found.
So don’t be afraid to spend a little money to invest in yourself.
But also, don’t feel like you have to break the bank with a $20,000 bootcamp.
Find a good balance of free courses, and maybe a paid course or two, and you’ll have everything you need for your journey.
What I’m Learning
Right now I’m diving deeper into statistics, because my Capstone project requires a good amount of statistical analysis.
I’m reading a fun book called How to Lie with Statistics. It’s a short introduction to statistics, how they can be deceiving, and how to perform statistical analysis with the least amount of bias possible.
When I’m done with my degree, I have a Udemy course on my list (Recommended by Alex the Analyst), and I’ll be touching up my statistics with that course as well:
Statistics for Data Science and Business Analytics
Quote of the Week
“When you are told that something is an average you still don’t know very much about it unless you can find out which of the common kinds of average it is — mean, median, or mode.”
-How to Lie with Statistics
If I tell you the average employee at a company makes $100,000 a year… what does that even mean?
If I’m using the mean, most people may make a modest salary, and a few are filthy rich.
The median might be 50k, which is more accurate, but not as sexy to say.
And the mode could be even lower, at 40k.
So whether it’s your analysis, or reading other people’s work, be careful not to fall for the trap of misleading averages.
Something Interesting
For my fellow nerds, this video of a guy building a game in Java with no experience was cool.
Feel-Good Finds
I took this picture of a double rainbow on a walk last week. It’s nothing special, but brightened up my morning.
Thanks for reading, and have a great week!
– Josh