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Overview of FREE Python Programming Courses for Beginners

By Marina Vorontsova 7,104 September 9, 2019

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Overview of FREE Python Programming Courses for Beginners

Nowadays, thanks to the prolificacy of freely available resources, one can learn any programming language or any skill for that matter, without paying a single penny. In this article, we’ll look at some popular free Python courses on Udemy, Coursera, and other platforms (including YouTube), which you can start with while learning your way through Python (with little or no investment).

Python Core and Advanced

Instructor: Bharath Thippireddy
Course length: 8.5 hours
Subjects covered: fundamentals of Python
Materials: 1 article, 2 downloadable resources
Updated: 8/2019

Description: You’ll start software setup and executing your first simple Python script and move further on into the realm of actual Python programming, creating and using functions, Lambdas, Decorators, and Generators, implementing inheritance, abstraction, polymorphism, and encapsulation, handling exceptions, getting to the grips of regular expressions, and more. The teacher is succinct and quite easy to understand. The course has been recommended by many, who said they didn’t have to take any other course to be able to move from “knowing nothing about Python” to “being able to script emails, writing, and working with files.”

Youtube example video:

Programming with Python: Hands-on Introduction for Beginners

Instructor: Febin George
Course length: 3.5 hours
Subjects covered: fundamentals of programming including Python
Materials: 1 article, 50 downloadable resources
Updated: 11/2018

Description: This is a relatively short course, where you’re expected to learn the very basics of programming, so if you don’t have any prior knowledge of basic programming concepts, that might be the very best course for you. Apart from the very fundamental concepts, you’ll learn the basics of Python language and work on a project at the end of the course to implement all the topics you’ve learned.

Deep Learning Prerequisites: The Numpy Stack in Python

Instructor: Lazy Programmer Inc (an AI and ML engineer behind the company)
Course length: 3.5 hours
Subjects covered: Numpy, Scipy, Pandas, and Matplotlib stack
Materials: n/a
Prerequisites: grasp of linear algebra, the Gaussian distribution, dot product, matrix inversion, and coding in Python
Updated: 3/2019

Description: This is not a course for a beginner in Python, however, if you’re already comfortable with coding in Python and want to learn more about deep learning, machine learning, and data science, then this course might be the one you’re looking for. The argument that the author of this course makes is that in order to understand deep learning and data science, you need to have enough knowledge about the Numpy stack, which is the basis of all other concepts.

Example YouTube video:

Learn Python 3.6 for Total Beginners

Instructor: Michael S Russell
Course length: 6.5 hours
Subjects covered: Python fundamentals
Materials: 1 article, 8 downloadable resources
Updated: 9/2018

Description: The course teaches the fundamentals of any programming language using Python 3.6, Anaconda 5.0.0, and Jupyter Notebook. Most of the students are satisfied with the course content, those who complained often mentioned the lack of scenario behind the lessons and instructor improvising at some point during the lectures.

Try Django 2.2 – Web Development with Python 3.6+

Instructor: Justin Mitchel
Course length: 4.5 hours
Subjects covered: Django fundamentals
Materials: n/a
Prerequisites: basic Python
Updated: 7/2017

Description: You’ll learn the Django basics, including but not limited to getting started with Django, integrating Bootstrap, working with Django app components, routing, lookups, forms, and user-generated data, navigation, publishing, etc.

Same course on Youtube:

Learn Python: Build a Virtual Assistant

Instructor: Adam Eubanks
Course length: 1 hour
Subjects covered: the intermediate python and structure of popular APIs
Materials: 5 articles
Prerequisites: coding in Python
Updated: 2/2017

Description: Adam, the creator of this course, seems like a genius teenager. Nevertheless, what the course covers is not even for a complete beginner. Make sure you use python 2.7, because that’s what the instructor uses, otherwise you’ll have to make a lot of tweaking with the system to be able to follow along. Overall, you’ll learn how to get started with Wolfram Alpha, use Wikipedia documentation, create a user interface for your virtual assistant application, make it talk and recognize your speech.

Video on Keras from the same guy:

Introduction to Python Programming

Instructor: Avinash Jain
Course length: 4.5 hours
Subjects covered: Python basics
Materials: 4 articles, 2 downloadable resources
Updated: 7/2018

Description: The course is taught by a freshman from the UC Berkeley California, however, the course was recorded back when the instructor was still in high school. Despite being so young, Avi is already a founder of an educational company called Codex and has multiple videos on youtube and Udemy. The course covers some basics in Python, including all major concepts like loops, strings, lists, conditional statements, tuples, functions, and inheritance.

Example video:

Codecademy Learn Python (free trial)

Course length: 25 hours
Subjects covered: Python fundamentals
Materials: n/a
Updated: regularly

Description: You’ll learn Python by attending interactive lessons, testing your knowledge with multiple-choice questions, and finally, working on a set of projects. You’ll start with basic syntax, functions, control flow, lists, and loops, and continue with strings, modules, dictionaries, classes, function arguments. There’s a free trial period after which you can choose several payment plans, which can be rather costly, let’s be honest.

DataCamp Introduction to Python (only Basics are free)

Instructor: Filip Schouwenaars
Course length: 4 hours
Subjects covered: basic Python (free) and intermediary Python
Materials: 57 exercises
Updated: regularly

Description: While the introduction to the course is free, you’ll have to pay to move beyond the basics, and into lists, functions and packages, NumPy array. There are other tracks available that all can count to the Python Programmer certification that comprises 52 hours of lectures and 13 courses in total. You can also look at some of the free interactive short tutorials on learnpython.org, a website supported by DataCamp

Example video:

Python Fundamentals (free trial)

Instructor: Austin Bingham
Course length: 5 hours
Subjects covered: fundamental Python
Materials: n/a
Updated: regularly

Description: Everything you need to get started with Python, from getting started with Python 3 to understanding strings, collections, modularity, objects, iterables, classes, and handling exceptions. Other Python crash courses offered at Plurasight.com

Other valuable free resources and courses for anyone who wishes to master Python:

edX Python
Coursera Python
Freecodecamp Python Guide
GitHub Awesome Python a curated list of awesome Python frameworks, libraries, software and resources

Paid courses:

Python Programming for Beginners – Learn in 100 easy steps (paid)

Instructor: in28Minutes Official
Course length: 11 hours
Subjects covered:
Materials: 3 articles, 1 downloadable resource
Updated: 8/2019

Description: You’ll learnPython the hard way — through 200 hands-on code examples and solve a wide range of Python programming exercises. The course covers all the necessary Python skills for you to go further and transition yourself into Analytics, Machine Learning, Data Science. You’ll also learn a variety of Data Structures like lists, set dictionary, tuples, moreover, you’ll learn how to think like a Python programmer. The course has been really well received and highly praised, so if you can spare a few dollars, then that seems like a very good option {watch out for Udemy coupons and sales}

Example video:

Python OOP: Four Pillars of OOP in Python 3 for Beginners (paid)

Instructor: Febin George
Course length: 2.5 hours
Subjects covered: OOP in Python
Materials: 1 article, 16 downloadable resources
Prerequisites: Python Basics
Updated:11/2018

Description: You’ll learn how Abstraction, Encapsulation, Inheritance, and Polymorphism work and how they can benefit your Python code. You’ll also learn the technicalities of Object-Oriented Programming in Python, including but not limited to Classes and Objects.

Python 3 Bootcamp for Novice: Start programming in Python 3 (paid)

Instructor: Ashwin Pajankar
Course length: 7.5 hours
Subjects covered: Python basics,
Materials: 6 articles, 42 downloadable resources
Updated: 9/2019

Description: You’ll learn how to write simple and basic Python 3 programs, use built-in functions, loop logic, recursion, functions, and work with arithmetic, logical, and bitwise operators. You’ll also learn how to work with Raspberry Pi, there’s a whole section dedicated to it. The course’s highly recommended, with only a few complaints that some of the basics were not properly explained for complete newbies.

Youtube videos free: