Learning Python for IB?

Hi All,

I was wondering if learning python is useful for somebody interested in IB, as I've heard its more important for S&T. I'm taking a course at my uni that covers python in finance, however I'm getting killed by it. It's the first time the professor has taught a course, and so it has no structure and I'm pretty much completely relying on outside learning and teaching myself. I took the course with the hope that it might help me stand out more given that I'm at a non-target known for engineering. That being said, I'm currently doing an internship during the school year, and I have to other clubs that I'll be heavily involved in this semester, so I really don't have enough time to commit to the python course as my outside involvement is already 20-30 hours per week. The course is not required for my major (finance), so I'm strongly considering dropping given how time consuming it is, and I really don't know if it will be that helpful for IB recruitment (current sophomore).

What are your thoughts? Do you think roughing out this python course and potentially harming my GPA would be worth it to learn python, or am I better off dropping and learning python on my own over summer?

11 Comments
 
Most Helpful

You don’t really need it to align logos haha. Maybe there’s some processes I do that would benefit from Python skills, but I’m fine for now. In all seriousness, because you haven’t secured an offer yet, it would be 100 times more beneficial to spend any and all free time you have networking and preparing for interviews.

Array
 

Definitely, I already have a large workload and recently started networking and prepping with technical guides last month, so I feel that’s a lot more beneficial to do this spring semester than a Python course that isn’t going to significantly help during interviews/recruitment.

 

Analyzing it from a cost-benefit perspective, I think it would cost you a lot more to take such an unstructured heavy course-load class. The (potential) benefit is not worth the definite loss of time that you could be using to study technicals that you will definitely need to land an internship/job, or just time away from living your life stress-free. If you do want to learn Python, my suggestion is to take any number of courses through UDEMY or Coursera (which is university-sponsored so you get the certificate from the university) and that will most likely give you the need-to-know stuff, cutting out the excess. And these courses are typically very easy to follow along and are self-paced. The bottom line is I think you should drop the course and study it yourself through online courses. 

 

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