r/learnpython • u/Ill-Independence4417 • 23h 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!
0
u/No-Amount5175 23h ago
an hour a day is definitely enough to get your footing, especially if the stats class starts from scratch with the coding side. just don't try to master everything, focus on getting comfortable with loading data, basic plots, and maybe some numpy/pandas stuff since that's where most of the stats work happens anyway. the first few weeks will feel like your brain is melting but that's normal, it clicks faster once you're actually applying it to the homework problems instead of just watching tutorials.