Debating whether paying for a premium coding course was worth it or a total waste

I spent $200 on a "complete beginner" Python course from a popular site (not naming names to avoid a war). On one hand, it gave me structured lessons and a clear path to follow each week, which saved me from getting lost in YouTube tutorials. But on the other hand, half the stuff was outdated and the exercises felt like busy work that didn't prepare me for real projects. I ended up going back to free resources and forums like this to actually build something useful, like a simple password generator. So it kind of saved me by forcing me to start, but also burned me with a false sense of progress. Has anyone else dropped cash on a course and felt it was more hype than helpful? What did you buy and did it actually move the needle for you?

2 comments

2 Comments

sanchez.mary8d ago

The real waste wasn't the money but the fake confidence it gave you. Paid courses make you feel productive when you're just following along like a robot. The moment you sit down to build something from scratch, that's when you figure out if you actually learned anything.

caseyrivera8d agoMost Upvoted

Three JavaScript courses deep and $400 lighter, I still couldn't build a to-do list that actually saved my data. The worst part was the "progress" - I had 18 completed modules and a whole folder of code I'd never written myself. Then I tried to build my own project and spent three hours debugging a typo in my CSS selector. It's humbling to realize I paid for the chance to be a really confident copy-paste artist. You ever buy a course and then immediately forget everything the second you close the tab?