What an excellent course. The Python portion gets you quickly up to speed on Python data structures, common libraries, and functions.

The ML portion gives two end to end examples of structuring, training, testing, and selecting ML models.

The pace of the course and level of detail given were great. The videos also had the right level of enthusiasm and inflection to keep you engaged and interested. There are opportunities to practice what you learn after almost every video.

I really want to thank the course creators for a job well done and I hope they create more courses. I highly recommend this training.

Great foundational course for Python. I had no previous experience in Python and this course equips beginners with practical and easy to learn fundamentals of the programming. I felt the instruction was clear and provided great applications for finance.

This course provides an excellent foundation for Python, focusing on essentials before applications. Zach Washam clearly defines the course purpose, aligning perfectly with my goals. The structured, multi-session format worked great with my busy schedule, and the pre-class preparation was well-communicated with a helpful video guide.

Zach’s articulate teaching and consistent use of precise terminology made learning seamless. He not only covered the basics thoroughly but also provided guidance for tailoring and advancing your Python experience. His detailed, example-driven responses to questions were particularly valuable.

The Introduction to Python course was a great start on the basics of Python. Zach was great at answering questions and taking the class along the journey to build a strong foundation of Python knowledge. This has me excited to continue learning more Python and applying it to my everyday work.

I'm looking forward to seeing how the course evolves in the future, and I'll be recommending this to my team members in FP&A. I'd love to see more examples added, especially depending on the format of the course (self-study vs. live).

I found this Python course incredibly useful and easy to follow. It covers the basics of Python programming and provides a solid foundation. The examples are clear, and while I haven't yet applied Python in my work, I’m excited to explore how it can be used in finance. I’m definitely looking forward to learning more and seeing how Python can enhance my work in the future.

The target audience and purpose of the training is simply defined, and it aligned with my goal and expectation. This is very important. The live-class is spread across multiple, structured sessions. As a busy professional, I appreciate this, because it worked great with my schedule. The pre-work for the class is well communicated, as there is also a video to walk you through it, step-by-step. From the start, Zach Washam is incredibly consistent in using accurate terminology. He's an articulate, perspicuous speaker. This makes learning so much easier! During the training, Zach presents and demonstrates the necessary basics for getting started, along with imparting the knowledge of how to tailor your learning and further your desired experience, with Python. He, metaphorically, leads you to water and explains the available tools and techniques used to drink, fish, or swim. Teaching this is setting you up for success, which is the real value, in my opinion. The content is versatile enough to meet the needs of each of the different learning styles (visual, auditory, and kinesthetic), making for efficient, effective delivery. The training exercises are sufficiently challenging; I only wish there was time for more, because they were fun! Zach successfully balances adherence to the class schedule, along with regularly encouraging questions and feedback. Based on the things I learned, I was able to start thinking of the ways that I can incorporate them into my work. I feel that I received high-quality instruction. I will continue to follow PyFi's offerings for other classes.

I took this early version of PyFi's Intro to Python course as a refresher on the foundations. I had some basic experience with Python before, but it had been years since I'd practiced and felt I needed to relearn the basics.

This course does a fantastic job setting up the foundations for Python. In fact, it was better than when I learned Python the first time around. Zach makes sure you really understand the essentials before throwing you into application like many other intro courses do. I felt this helped me understand the basic functions better than I had before, in a way that will help make more intermediate and advanced learning more intuitive. Additionally, I appreciated when he walked us through how he applied his own learnings in a professional setting. He walked through it in an easy to understand manner, and made it feel accessible for anyone. Furthermore, the supplied notebook files were very well written, and easy to follow on my own. They are great to refer back to, with good guidance added.

I am giving the course 4 stars at this early moment in its history (late 2024) because there's room for improvement to really refine it into something special. I would say this is more 4.5 stars, but I could only select on a 5 point scale. Zach has been very open to feedback and encouraged students to help him improve the course, so this is already promising.

What I would like to see is a little more connection early on to practical application, even if it's just explaining briefly without diving deep into code in an applied setting. I would also like to see more exercises along the way. The course has some good exercises in the second half, but the first half could also use them too. Additionally, I think it could help to focus the class time around adding more context and nuance to the teaching material. Zach already did that reasonably well, but a lot of time was spent on the notes within the notebook itself. I already commented above that the notebooks are written so well, I could follow on my own.

In summary, this is one of the best introductory courses I've seen, with excellent materials supplied that can easily be used on my own. I recommend leaning more into showing application, exercises, and adding more context/nuance during the class sessions itself as ways to improve the course.

Great course that covers all the basics of getting started in Python from scratch. All the material was very accessible for anyone with experience in Excel, and Zach did a great job demonstrating how these skills could be applied to real world scenarios.

This was my second time taking a week-long introductory Python for Finance course, and I think this one surpassed the first (which was part of my MS Finance curriculum) in the number of topics covered, accessibility for a beginner, and demonstration of concepts and techniques that are directly applicable to daily tasks.

Zach does a good job of introducing and describing the foundations of Python while connecting to how expanded concepts could be applied in a Finance work setting. I especially appreciated the detail and care spent in addressing questions with walking through and proving example answers rather than simply presenting a generalized answer.

This course is a great intro and really helps lay the foundation for Python. I've tried other courses before on Udemy, but this class was definitely easier to follow along in. Highly recommend!

Zach (lead instructor) is a very intelligent, passionate instructor. The course is top tier.

I will say, the material is quite difficult in nature. There is no casually learning this stuff, regardless of where you learn it. You must commit, but if you do, the possibilities are endless.

As a Finance student (double major, Finance / Mechanical Engineering), we're always looking for ways to set ourselves apart in the space -- it might be more quantitative experience, more experience with different regulatory frameworks, strategies, or specialized forms of analysis or valuation. I found the Python Fundamentals and Applied Machine Learning extremely useful for re-learning certain concepts of Python, with an eye towards their applicability to Finance. And also for applying Python in very new ways within the ML context, for performing types of prediction that I was amazed were even possible! Right from the beginning of these courses, you're learning and applying new and insightful techniques. The setup of the language is straightforward, and the introduction into the various libraries and tools is great. It builds cumulatively towards very interesting projects that would be instrumental to work as an IB analyst or other kinds of Finance roles.

The PyFi Introduction to Finance course is a great introduction to Python for professionals working in the finance field. The course most specifically excels at helping students through the "where do I start?" phase of learning Python by introducing users to GitHub's "CodeSpaces" which is intuitive and relatively easy to setup without installing anything to your local machine, even for a beginner.

The instructor is the founder of the company, and is easy to follow along with and open to questions. I also did find that the instructor was prepared and used the CodeSpaces platform effectively for teaching.

The course is an effective introduction to the basics of the language and I would be interested in potential future course offerings that extend deeper into the world of Python programming and its applications to the world of finance.

I enjoyed the course and learned a lot in a short amount of time. I especially enjoyed the fact that the fundamentals course was specifically geared towards finance professionals with examples and formulas very familiar to finance professionals.

My only suggestion is to really hammer home how Python is better than Excel -- why finance professionals shouldn't just be Excel gurus and should pursue Python as a supplement. It might seem obvious to computer programmers, but I thus far I am left wondering how it beats excel in most cases beyond dealing with huge datasets.