Kaggle Learn

Free coursesHands-onLevel: IntermediateFree

Kaggle Learn

4.0/52dm rating

Short data courses, with exercises that run right in the browser.

Kaggle's free short courses on Python, Pandas, data visualization and machine learning, learned through hands-on exercises.

Official site How to use it

Overview

Kaggle is a well-known data science community and machine learning competition platform, and Kaggle Learn is its short-course arm. Kaggle itself describes these as free courses focused on data skills you can apply right away.

The courses are designed to be brief, with short lessons alternating with exercises. Notable courses include Python (the most important language for data science), Pandas, Data Visualization, Intro to Machine Learning (core concepts and building your first model) and Intermediate Machine Learning.

For SMEs, Kaggle Learn suits staff who want to move from Excel to data analysis with Python, or people who want to understand machine learning through practice rather than theory. Content is in English.

Highlights

Free of charge

Kaggle describes the Learn courses as free of cost.

Short and very hands-on

Each course is split into small lessons, with coding exercises right on Kaggle.

A clear data roadmap

Goes from Python, Pandas and data visualization to basic and intermediate machine learning.

Completion certificates

Kaggle has a certificate page for people who finish a course, which can be shared on a personal profile.

Tied to the competition community

After learning, you can try your hand at data and competitions on Kaggle for more practice.

What it's for

Moving from Excel to Python

Accounting and sales staff learn Python and Pandas to handle large data files that Excel runs slowly on.

Simple forecasting for business

The person in charge of data learns Intro to Machine Learning to try forecasting sales from historical sales data.

Visual reports

Marketing staff learn Data Visualization to create campaign report charts.

Training data interns

Businesses assign the Kaggle Learn path as entry exercises for interns.

How to use it

1
Open Kaggle Learn
Go to kaggle.com/learn to see the course list.
2
Create a Kaggle account
Sign up to do the exercises and save progress.
3
Learn in a sensible order
Start with Python, then Pandas, then Intro to Machine Learning.
4
Do all the exercises in each lesson
Read the short lesson, then run and edit code in the accompanying exercise section.
5
View your completion certificate
After finishing a course, go to the list of completed courses to view and share the certificate.

Video guides

Intro to Machine Learning Lesson 1: How Models Work
Kaggle

Real-world example

Illustrative scenario

A small cosmetics store chain has years of sales data scattered across Excel files. The staff member in charge of reports takes Kaggle's Python and Pandas courses over a few evenings, then can write code that merges the stores' data, calculates sales by product group and plots trend charts. Compiling the end-of-month report becomes faster and less error-prone than doing it by hand.

Tips & notes

Don't skip the exercises
The exercises are where you really learn; don't just read the lessons.
Use your own data
After each course, reapply the techniques to a real company data file (with sensitive information hidden).
Learn consistently every day
For short courses, 30 to 60 minutes a day is more effective than cramming.
Look at community notebooks
When stuck, see how others solved it on Kaggle to learn more.