Practicum by Yandex

In the end of November, I decided to enroll for the Practicum by Yandex Data Science bootcamp. I started the introductory course and I got hooked. So much, that I completed the first three chapters in 2 days. It did not take me long either to complete... Read More the rest 5 chapters of the course. It was not my knowledge and skills that enabled me to finish everything in such a short time, but the interesting content, and the help of the Yandex team. I must say that is not the first time I am doing online Python lessons, but it is the first time where I feel challenged (rather than discouraged) to solve tasks and problems. I really like the concise content of the lessons - structured around solving a particular problem and I love the message window that pops up after getting the right solution. How well thought that these messages are not saying the same thing over and over again, such as 'Correct' or 'Well done', but they make reference to the topic I study at that moment and summarize the results in a creative way. These messages put smile on my face. I also like that there are diverse range of examples for the tasks, so there is something of interest for everyone (regardless whether you are a movie fan, marketing analyst, or social media devote, there is something you have knowledge on, so that motivates you more to solve the tasks and see what the results are). In addition, I feel that I am part of a great community that is always there to help. I have asked for help on fb, on slack, directly on the learning platform and the whole team is so friendly and makes me feel that I am not bothering them and that they are always available for the students. I am so excited about everything on this course, that I find myself studying late at night, or whenever I find a free time during my day job. I genuinely enjoy my learning journey with Yandex. Thank you Yandex team, you are all wonderful!

Saw some nice reviews on the website and decide to give it a try. But upon completing the free introductory program, I learned that they more than doubled their course price from 1600 to 4000 (on Dec 7th,2020) without any substantial improvement in the... Read More curriculum. For this price I think it might be better off to just go with udacity instead, since they are a lot more established and recognized. Please definitely be aware before joining!

Like many other novice developers, I've found myself stuck in a tutorial loop which felt inescapable. I had been trying to make a career switch, but was frustrated with the endless "beginner" codecamps which often resulted in just copying and pasting... Read More code. I had even completed a FullStack Javascript program from a competitor and felt abandoned the moment I got my certificate. Luckily, I didn't give up and I found Practicum. The course lessons are very interesting and tend to dive a bit deeper than most other programs to ensure you learn the "Why" behind the code. They even sprinkle lessons throughout the curriculum dedicated to helping transfer careers! I've made some great relationships with my instructors who I'm glad to call my mentor. Thank you Practicum for helping me break into my dream career!

For a long time I felt that I need a career change but I wasn't sure where to go. I tries various courses on Coursera and Udemy but without much success. In the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, I saw a Yandex Practicum ad on Facebook and decided to... Read More try the Data Analyst program. In the beginning, I wasn't even sure that I will be able to finish it because the whole topic was pretty new to me. But as I was doing it, I got more and more interested and involved in the program. The main program starts with a lesson about mindset and it really helped me improve my attitude. The course is structured in just the right way to involve students and keep it interesting. There are tons of practice tasks from the very beginning with increasing difficulty. The theoretical parts are clearly written and followed by exercises and real life projects. All exercises and projects pretty challenging so you can feel the growing confidence after completing it. All projects are get checked by an industry professionals. They provide really valuable feedback. Sometime you may need to correct and resubmit the project several times until it is done correctly and accepted by reviewer. During the program, I completed 12 projects and one additional project, so the portfolio is pretty impressing. Another great part of the program are biweekly webinars. During the webinar, students could see the how the data analyst works on different real life problems and real time coding sessions. The webinars give more live interactions to the program.
The program teaches all technical and soft skills needed to junior data analyst:
- Python programming language with libraries like Pandas, Matplotlib, Seaborn, Plotly, etc.
- Jupiter Notebook
- SQL queries and data processing
- Data preprocessing with Python
- Exploratory and statistical data analysis
- Business analytics and A/B test
- Data visualization (graphs and dashboards) with Python libraries and Tableau
- Automation and machine learning basics
As a student, I feel constant support from the Practicum team: community managers, mentor, technical support and from fellow students. You can ask any question in the chat and get needed help pretty fast. Sometimes there could be some time lag because the team can be located in the other part of the world but technical support helps really fast anyway.
I also need to mention the career support program where student can get various help with resume writing, portfolio preparation, attend webinars with technical recruiters and career couches and much more.
To make the program even more appealing, I would make some suggests:
* I would add kind of "tutor-on-duty" to answer the questions of the students from the different time zones. Sometimes, I got stuck in some tasks and could not move forward. I had to wait the help from my tutor till the next day because of the time difference. It could be pretty annoying for people with the packed schedules.
* It would be very useful to have both way communication with the reviewer.
* Also, after completion of the projects, it would be very interesting to see other students' projects or best projects from the previous cohorts.
Thank you Yandex Practicum Team for the great program, for the opportunity to be part of the great community, and opportunity to grow as a professional.

The breadth and depth of the material will prepare anyone for today's workforce.
I felt cared for and supported throughout the learning process.
We completed lessons on the platform and projects on our own. The projects were reviewed and approved or returned... Read More for improvements. Every improvement was worth while and significantly increased the quality of my work.
I went from feeling a bit overwhelmed to feeling excited about the next task.
“How does this work?” became “I know I can do this!”

for web development .. i joined the web development online bootcamp .. its amazing and so professional .. code review is great and curriculum is wow .. price is perfect and projects are very helpful to understand the material .. also you can ask whatever... Read More you want and you will get answers

After finishing a full-stack web development boot-camp, I felt lost and was definitely not ready for a job in the web development world. Since then, I knew that boot camps were not meant for me, but then I was going through Facebook and saw this ad for... Read More being a beta test for this new course that Practicum had, that one being a web development course. In my mind, I was skeptical. I already knew how boot-camps worked and how all they care about most of the time is to make money without caring whether the students learn or not, but I decided to give it a try; after all, it couldn’t hurt, and I was a beta test. I’ve decided to enroll and did the introductory week and learned more in 2 weeks than I did in 2 months in my other boot-camp. Ever since I started, it has been quite a ride, with impressive and up to date materials. You’re not just reading and asked to do something that you have no idea how to do, you get to practice all that you’ve learned, and then you get a task. The other great thing is that while you are learning, you are also learning Agile methodology, which is used for most companies out there. Now the tasks can be difficult and challenging at time, but you have a fantastic community and a tutor that is always willing to answer your questions. Reviews are the same way, they can seem as they are too picky at times, but in reality, they are trying to review your code as an actual company would. Thanks to Practicum, I could definitely say I am way better developer than I was when I came out of my other boot-camp and thanks to them, I now feel like confident enough to enter the field

I just started my third month in the web development program.  Wanted to leave a review because I couldn't find many of them online before I decided to join the program.

The good:
•  The introductory course was a good way to discover that their teaching... Read More style is a good fit for me.
•  I have learned a LOT in a short time.  The large projects and strict deadlines keep me learning at a much faster pace than I ever would studying on my own.
•  Having the main tutor, community manager, student tutors, and fellow classmates available.  They're there if I have questions, need help, need to vent, etc.
•  It is an incredible value.  It's almost a year's worth of coding education for only $1000.  Even when things aren't perfect, I can't really complain since I've saved so much money by going here instead of other (pricier) boot camps.  And I feel like I'm receiving a very quality education for that price.

Could be better:
•  Maybe it's because I'm older and not as quick as I used to be.  But I spend a LOT more time on this course than I expected to.  It's been the equivalent of a full-time job for me.  They say 10 hours a week minimum.  But I don't know how realistic that is depending on your experience level starting out.    
•  Sometimes there is a language barrier.  The way things are worded on the learning platform can be difficult to understand.  We also have live coding events and it can be difficult for me to understand what the programmer is saying.
•  The learning platform can be frustrating.  If you don't answer the question the exact way to the computer is expecting you to, then you can't continue.  And if nobody is around on the slack channel to help you, then you can be stuck there for a long time.  Which is not only a time waste, but also prevents you from being able to access your project and start working on it.
•  This isn't really a negative thing.  But they have a lot of faith in us lol.  The projects we do every two weeks are not simple.  It's not rare to feel unprepared and overwhelmed every time we first view the instructions.  It usually feels impossible at first.  And the code reviewers are very strict about what they'll accept.  Yet somehow, I keep managing to stick with it and complete everything.

Hope this is helpful to someone out there.  

The material on the platform is engaging and the community is very supportive. But what really makes this course shine are the real, substantial projects that you build from the ground up, along with the challenging system of code reviews for each project.... Read More Highly recommended.

I recently completed the first phase of the Data Analyst course using Python at Practicum by Yandex as a beta tester.

Considering the fact that my track record of starting numerous courses across various platforms always ended up with me leaving the course... Read More mid-way for some reason or the other. (Read laziness and procastination)

Yandex, was a totally diffrent experience for 3 main reasons:

1) Deadlines: Considering each of the modules have a 2 week deadline attached to it, this sense of urgency actually helped a lazy person like me. However, there are options available in case you miss these deadlines but still having a sword above my head helped 😃

2) Projects: Besides the regular lessons, there is a project that needs to be done for each sprint, Also at the end of any particular phase an integrated project awaits you that tests in amalgation all that you have learnt across the various sprints. Each of the project is checked and reviewed by tutors with comments to improve

3) Tutoring and Slack Community: there is a super amazing slack channel and a very well versed group of professional tutors at your disposal to help you understand concepts and guide you whenever you are stuck.

I can't thank these guys enough! A great experience so far!
#datascience #python