I dropped $60 on a Python course and it was a total waste

I bought a 'Python for Beginners' video course last month, thinking it would give me a good start. The lessons were just the teacher reading slides, and the coding examples were too simple to be useful. On the other hand, my friend learned from free YouTube videos and is already building small projects. Did I just pick a bad course, or are paid resources sometimes not worth it for a complete newbie? What's a better way to spend that first bit of learning money?

4 comments

4 Comments

jessej232mo ago

Oof, that's rough. Honestly, it's not that paid stuff is always bad, you just got a dud course. For that kind of money, you could've grabbed a solid project-based book instead.

wyatt1352mo agoTop Commenter

Yeah the "anyone can slap together a video course" part is so true. My buddy bought a course on making mobile games, and the guy just read the official Unity docs out loud for eight hours. He didn't even build the example project, just talked about it. My friend was so mad he asked for a refund, but the platform said he watched too much to qualify. He basically paid to hear someone else read a free manual, it was brutal.

marydavis2mo ago

Totally agree with @jessej23 about grabbing a book instead. A good book forces the writer to actually explain things step by step, not just read slides out loud. The real problem is that anyone can slap together a video course, so you get a lot of junk. For a newbie, the best money is often on a platform that lets you actually code along and get instant feedback, not just watch someone talk. Save videos for when you're stuck on a specific problem later.

brianm667d ago

Nah, gotta push back on this one. A book is static the second it goes to print. By the time you get it, half the framework versions are outdated. Video courses at least get updated more often, some even have community comments where people point out the bugs or version changes. Plus a 30 second video clip can save you an hour of squinting at a screenshot of code. Books have their place, sure, but watching someone actually debug something live teaches you that "oh that's how you troubleshoot" thing way better than a book ever will.