Udemy 100 Days of Code Review: A life changing course
If you’re looking at the thumbnail and thinking, “what course is this? Never seen it before,” then you’re missing out.
For me, this was the course that started it all.
I won’t beat around the bush: this is one of the best online courses of all time. If Intro to Machine Learning by Andrew Ng is the Kobe Bryant of online learning, then this might be the Michael Jordan of online courses.
Rating: Excellent — 9.5/10
But why am I backing this course so much? Here it is:
This course makes learning fun
If you’re a beginner, I genuinely believe you should buy this course.
It takes you from beginner to advanced not only in Python, but in other coding aspects as well. I underwent a tremendous identity shift after taking this course — because it made learning fun. And fun it is.
Angela Yu has a unique, motivating approach that radiates through the screen.
You’ll wake up each morning restless, impatient to open up your laptop and churn out some code.
Her teaching approach is something like this:
- Teach the concept, introducing it in the context of larger computing history.
- Code up a fun project
- Every few minutes, she’ll leave a checkpoint as a challenge to you to solve the problem yourself.
- At the end of every section, she records a wholesome video giving you soft skill tips about what it’s like to be a programmer.
The best part is that she challenges you.
This is one of the few courses where you’ll actually learn because she supports you in coding by yourself.
There are three major benefits to this course:
- Advanced Python Knowledge
- Hands-on projects and integrated coding exercises
- Identity shift
Let’s dive into each of these in order:
Advanced Python Knowledge
If you’re looking to learn Python (I mean, why else would you be here?), then this course covers all the concepts from beginning to advanced.
With topics like generators, decorators, list and dictionary comprehensions, you’ll learn all the tools that Python-proficient developers use.
But language proficiency isn’t the important part. Anyone can do that given a week or two. So what’s so good about the course?
It introduces you to the Python Ecosystem.
You use many Python libraries and frameworks like TKinter, Flask, Django, Selenium, Beautiful Soup, and much, much more.
This is a major reason why you should pick this course if you are a beginner. By introducing you to the entire ecosystem of programming, she frees you to choose your own path afterwards.
Machine learning? You know it.
Web scraping? She got you.
Data Scientist? Pretty much same as machine learning.
Java programmer — okay, not that one.
But it’s all in your grasp. By being introduced to this wide arsenal of tools, you can tackle any personal project with ease.
Not many Python courses integrate learning with real-world projects, and even if they do — they could never make it as fun as Angela Yu does.
Here is the course structure laid out:
- Days 1–14 : Basic Python
- Days 15–31: Intermediate python with TKinter
- Days 32–40: Intermediate python with APIs
- Days 41–53: Intermediate python with web scraping and web foundations
- Days 54–66: Advanced python with Flask backend development
- Days 67–80: Advanced python projects: machine learning, web dev
- Days 80–100: The wild west. 20 Portfolio projects based on a single sentence prompt.
One unexpected but welcome result from this course is how deep it goes into web development, which no other Python course does.
I don’t know how you could look at this lesson lineup and not get excited — so excited you could jump out your bed and teleport to your keyboard.
What you’ll learn in this course
- Building GUIs (Graphical User Interfaces) in Python
- Automating and web scraping with BeautifulSoup and Selenium
- How to use APIs in Python
- How to build websites with HTML and CSS.
- How to build servers with Flask
Shhhh. It’s alright if you don’t understand what an API or GUI is. You’ll learn soon. My job is to just sell you on the course — while her job is to teach it.
So whether you want to become a machine learning engineer (not really) or a full-stack web developer (probable), this course has it all.
Hands-on Projects
Another aspect this course does excellent on is the project scheme.
You start off with basic projects like a calculator, a quiz game, but then shuttle off into more complex projects like recreating the Snake Game or creating an automatic cookie clicker player.
So what’s different about this course? It takes this fact into consideration:
You can only get better at something if it is challenging for you.
Angela Yu knows this fact and she shovels it into each lesson and project. Instead of the usual “watch me code so you feel like you’re learning but not really” tactic, she challenges you to do parts of the project yourself.
Every once in a while, she’ll set up a checkpoint for you to try the problem on your own. Can’t solve it? No worries.
All that matters is that you tried, as opposed to the thousands of other aspiring programmers who do more watching and less coding.
She has a special way of making knowledge stick in your head like cement. You only need to put in a tiny effort and step out of the comfort zone. At first it’ll be hard, but as you keep churning out code, the difficulty turns to sheer enjoyment.
The learning aspect is virtually perfect, but that knowledge is only a small part of what really makes this course worth buying.
Identity shift
I’ve been coding for a large part of my life, but I was never serious about it. Developer? Front-end? Back-end? All meaningless jargon.
Coding was never more than a subject at my school. Like a lab rat suckling on a sugar water tube for pleasure, I only cared about the grade I got from my problem sets or coding lab homework.
Chances are it’s been a long time since you were a kid, so I’ll do my best to paraphrase a child’s worldview to you. Kids don’t have dreams. They have whims, fantasies. They want to be president one day and an astronaut the next.
For such a creature, the future is even more uncertain to them than it is for adults. No — it’s better to say that the future barely even exists for them. Today is the only thing that matters and will always matter.
I would revere children with such optimistic mindsets as veritable philosophical geniuses, but some of us have goals we want to reach.
So how did you undergo the mind-boggling transformation from the selfish child you once were to the goal-oriented (or not) adult you are today?
No idea.
But if some event in your life happened to kickstart that transformation, it’d have to be pretty powerful, right?
And that’s exactly what Angela Yu’s course did for me.
For the first time in my life, I was proud to be a nerd. I grinned when I was doing something “technical” and something that resembled “schoolwork.”
Angela doesn’t just make you a programmer. She converts you into coding fan for life. With interesting tidbits of technical history and motivational videos at the end of each section, progressing through this course feels somewhat like a journey.
I’d argue that once you complete all 100 days, you’d have changed into a completely different being. She arms you with knowledge and consistency most people don’t have, as well as with a new passion to create, create, and create.
I didn’t finish the course. I got scared after day 64 when she stopped holding my hand and left me to fend for myself.
But I never needed to finish it. 3 years later, and I’m still going strong in programming, learning the technology behind the buzzwords of Docker, AWS, Next.js, and TypeScript - jargon which initially had no meaning to me whatsoever.
You might argue that it’s not that great of a course if I couldn’t finish it — I see where you’re coming from. But I doubt you’ll find any other course where you can say “yeah, that changed my life.”
The Good, The Bad, and The Pretty
Let’s get into the specific benefits and drawbacks of the course.
The Good
By day 20, you become proficient at Python. You might have even built cool projects like a Jackson Pollock art generator and a faithful recreation of the Snake game.
By day 40, you get good at web scraping, and you don’t need me to tell how exciting it is to automate anything you want.
If you at least get to day 60, this course is invaluable in becoming a full-stack Python developer. You’ll cover all the bases, like databases, forms, REST APIs, and more.
It’s hard being a beginner and trying something new, but the best aspect about the course is how beginner-friendly it is.
I really can’t repeat myself enough:
This is the best beginner programming course of all time.
And not only will you understand, but you will also apply your knowledge. Here’s a quick list of potential life-improving topics she teaches you:
- Teaches you how to build servers and host your own websites.
- Teaches you how to use HTML, CSS, and Bootstrap to create beautifully designed websites.
- Gives you all the tools to automate your life with web scraping and Google Sheets API.
The Bad
Why a 9.5/10? Because while the course teaches you everything you need to become a Python developer, the lack of instruction near the end throws you for a loop.
After carefully concocting the perfect lesson plan to teach students about how to accept incoming data into your website via a POST request, the next lesson is literally “ok lol now go and implement CRUD functionality with a SQLite database all by yourself.”
You shouldn’t throw someone in the deep end if they’ve never even been in the water first.
Prior to this, she didn’t give a single lesson about databases, why they’re used, and how to use them.
People make entire courses about SQL. How can the average beginner programmer do what she just asked?
Not only that, but also her starting source code is always outdated.
But of course she knows all this. After 60 days of instruction, she lets you do the heavy lifting of learning on your own, to dive into behemoths of topics like machine learning and data science.
But what percent of the population will actually achieve that? Just by being consistent and passionate, you can get to day 60.
After that? — she’s culling the herd.
The people who complete all 100 days will no doubt be insane at programming, but they’ll standing on the corpses of their fallen cohorts, average people who wanted a little more guidance than a three minute document.
Although some people may not agree with me, I feel teaching should promote the minor success of many rather than the major success of a few.
So in short:
- After day 68, there are no more videos, only instructions.
- Videos about APIs or third-party libraries are often outdated.
The pretty
Each section has a motivational video near the end. Angela gives some life advice on how to keep going with programming, and she’ll tell you what a great job you’re doing.
Like the humanoid goldfishes of my generation, I forget everything after a few minutes, including her eloquent words.
But I like to think that I still remember how her words made me feel. Whenever I sit too long in the same spot, burned out and struggling with some cryptic bug in my code, I remember those videos.
Even when it’s difficult, I’m creating something. Even when it’s boring, I’m building something.
Then I turn on some Lofi and clack away at my keyboard again.
Programming is supposed to be fun. Her course taught me that.
I was lucky enough to find something I love, something I wouldn’t mind doing for the rest of my life. Something I would do for free (hell, nobody’s paying me anyway right now). Most people don’t have that.
I call it luck, but there’s a good chance that luck will rub off on you too once you start the course.
Conclusion
If you’re scared of the price point, just remember that Udemy does a super limited edition I swear I’m not lying sale every 9 days, so just wait until the course becomes $14 again.
And if you’re still here, thanks for reading. I have some cheap resources you might like:
I’ve compiled over 60 hours of learning JavaScript into these two notebooks, only for $2.99. If that sounds of interest, be sure to check it out.
