Course Feedback

Course Feedback

This page is for documenting condensed feedback (see discussion here)

Programming with Python 30 April 2026

Summary

• Attendance = 16 / 30
• Responses = 8
• Rating = 4.75 +/- 0.46

Data

Q3	Q5_1	Q6	Q7	Q8	Q9
Which faculty are you in?	How would you rate the course overall?	Please suggest one thing the instructor could have done to make the lesson more effective.	If you could pick one thing from the lesson to go over again, what would it be?	What other topics would you like to have covered in the lesson?	Do you have any other feedback?
Biology, Medicine and Health	5		dictionaries
Science and Engineering	5
Science and Engineering	5	The instruction during the course was fine as is.	Manipulating large datasets / defensive programming	Nothing appropriate for the level of the course - see further feedback	Course was a fantastic refresher, I would absolutely sign up for an advanced course with this team. I feel confident to address my research tasks now however an advanced course would really help with performing calculations an large data sets in either an engineering capacity or even statistically.
Biology, Medicine and Health	4	the first part of the day went quite quickly and there was limited time for questions and discussion	data analysis and visualisation	data analysis, use of various packages and peculiarities, Easy ways of using packages	excellent afternoon session. Pace was great and detailed
Science and Engineering	5	reduce the speed and let the students type and check their code.	The pandas section was really good, also the people from IT to support us with our question at any level. It was amazing.	I think that would good to see course on prompt engineering to help us provide effective and engineered prompt for AI tools.	The instructors and assistance were amazing. Thank you
Science and Engineering	4	I thought it was great that we can try code on a Jupyter notebook, but it wasn't necessary.  More importantly, the class started late because people had problems setting up their environment and coming late.  Maybe you could start the lesson with just talking and when we're all working independently through the review session at the beginning, then help people set up the environment.  For those of us who mostly had things working (I will admit that I had a small issue, too!), it's not great to wait for others.	Probably pandas.  I think I signed up for this class mostly for numpy and pandas.  Though the units and temperatures (which we did not go through, but it's good to read it by myself -- thanks!) were two things I never knew about and appreciate being exposed to it, in case I need to know some day in another job.	I brought this up at the end of the class -- so by bringing it up again, you're going to know who this is.  :-)  But one thing I do use more than numpy and pandas is regular expressions.  I'm still stuck using Perl for it (because I am far better with Perl than Python).  And I feel I need to stop being a fossil and use Python for it...  I think Perl is better for it, so I feel I must be doing it all wrong.	I have a suggestion, but I don't have a solution.  When either Andrew or Scott were talking up front and people were being helped, it made it difficult to hear or pay attention.  I don't know the solution...other than maybe designate some periods when the person up front "has control" and rather than running up to help someone, ask them to wait a bit?  The person helping should whisper?  I don't know what the solution is because this is a common problem for any type of hands-on computing course.
Science and Engineering	5	If the temperature in the room was lower	defensive programming	how to more effectively use LLMs when programming
Science and Engineering	5	I think the course is very effective	Numpy and Matplotlib Essential

Appendix: How to make the course response data table

If using the Qualtrics survey

• Get permission (approval from
• Go to the "Data and Analysis" tab
• Add a filter for the Q1 "Which course did you attend?". You may need to add an additional filter by date for a particular time the course ran.
• Add and remove questions from the view using the + and - buttons on the header row. Make sure the data contains no identifiable information for the students (e.g. name, email address).
• When ready click Export & Import -> Export Data, make sure Download all fields is unchecked, download a csv and copy-paste the data above - it should be automatically formatted as Markdown but you will need to delete the html wrapper.