My name is Joseph Perry and I've taught programming, cybersecurity, IT classes, and seminars all over the world to audiences ranging from a 3-person SCenter to a meeting of silicon valley executives. My online courses normally focus on IT and Cybersecurity specific training; career guidance, technical skills, strategy, and policy. This course however, is my first online programming course targeted, not at professional computer scientists, but at everyday workers who just want another tool in their belt and don't really care about all the complicated under-the-hood stuff.

Over my years spent teaching in-person and online classes, I've learned that people don't learn technical, hands-on skills like Python programming by memorizing terms and having facts quoted at them from a video. Additionally, while the existing Python training courses are excellent resources, they also tend to be a pretty heavy investment in terms of time and money, and the majority of people who might want to learn Python don't have hundreds of dollars and dozens of hours to spare. After all, most people aren't planning to make Python the center of their career, they're just looking for a new skill to add to their repertoire.

From those considerations, I designed this course: Practical Python. Rather than traditional video lectures, students will watch as I write code live and describe its uses and needs, then work on exercises designed to incrementally build not only their programming skills, but their confidence in researching and learning new programming concepts. Instead of another hard-core bootcamp promising to make you the world's best programmer if you just watch a few hundred hours of video lecture, this is all about giving you the core understanding necessary to use Python in your daily life, and explore the language further as you find interest.

If you've always wanted to pick up a new skill, but don't feel comfortable committing hundreds of dollars and dozens of hours, this is the perfect course for you. Give it a try!