# Python for Automation Course Online

Canonical URL: <https://vdci.edu/courses/python-for-automation-course-online>

## Overview

In this course, you'll discover how Python can be used to automate repetitive tasks and collect data from the web efficiently. Through self-paced training, you'll learn how to gather up-to-date information from websites, which can be especially useful across areas like social media, e-commerce, real estate, travel, or public sector research. The focus is on practical automation, helping you save time and gain faster access to the data you need to make informed decisions. This course is ideal for programming beginners who want to dive into coding, especially those focused on using Python for web scraping and software development. It's also part of our [Data Science & AI Certificate Online (Self-Paced)](https://vdci.edu/certificates/data-science-ai-certificate-online).

As the course progresses, you’ll work hands-on with Python to extract specific data from web pages, write loops to process large sets of information, and build scripts that run automatically on a schedule. You’ll also learn how to troubleshoot common coding issues, store scraped data in different formats, and even use Python to update Excel files automatically. Designed with beginners in mind, the course provides a clear entry point into programming while building real skills in automation and web scraping.

## What you'll learn

- Understand how websites are structured using HTML and CSS to locate and extract specific data
- Build a foundation in Python fundamentals, including variables, data types, conditionals, loops, and working with lists
- Use the Requests and Beautiful Soup libraries to scrape web content and target relevant information
- Write loops to automate data collection across multiple web pages and reduce repetitive manual work
- Save scraped data in common formats such as text files and CSVs for analysis and reporting
- Schedule Python scripts to run automatically, supporting ongoing data collection and automated workflows

## Prerequisites

Participants should have knowledge equivalent to our Python for Data Science Bootcamp course.

## Curriculum

### Section 1

#### Introduction to HTML/CSS (Online)

- How a website is served
- Anatomy of a web page
- HTML tags
- IDs
- CSS classes

#### Python Part 1

- Integers + Floats
- Variables
- Strings
- Methods + Functions

### Section 2

#### Webscraping Exercise Part 1

- Introduction to using packages
- Requests packages
- Performing a GET request
- String manipulation
- Debugging a Python script

#### Python Part 2

- Booleans
- Conditional Statements
- Lists
- Indexing into strings + lists
- Looping over lists

### Section 3

#### Webscraping Exercises Part 2

- Beautiful Soup package
- Honing in on data
- Common webscraping pitfalls
- Using loops in webscraping

#### Storage and Scheduling

- Text files
- CSVs
- Scheduling a Python Script

## Instructors

### Garfield Stinvil — Instructor

Garfield is an experienced software trainer with over 16 years of real-world professional experience. He started as a data analyst with a Wall Street real estate investment company & continued working in the professional development department at New York Road Runners Organization. He enjoys bringing humor to whatever he teaches and loves conveying ideas in novel ways that help others learn more efficiently.

Since starting his professional training career in 2016, he has worked with several corporate clients including Adobe, HBO, Amazon, Yelp, Mitsubishi, WeWork, Michael Kors, Christian Dior, and Hermès. 

Outside of work, his hobbies include rescuing & archiving at-risk artistic online media using his database management skills.

### Colin Jaffe — Instructor

Colin Jaffe is a programmer, writer, and teacher with a passion for creative code, customizable computing environments, and simple puns. He loves teaching code, from the fundamentals of algorithmic thinking to the business logic and user flow of application building—he particularly enjoys teaching JavaScript, Python, API design, and front-end frameworks.

Colin has taught code to a diverse group of students since learning to code himself, including young men of color at All-Star Code, elementary school kids at The Coding Space, and marginalized groups at Pursuit.

Colin lives in Brooklyn with his wife, two kids, and many intricate board games.

### Brian McClain — Instructor

Brian McClain is an experienced instructor, curriculum developer, and web developer. Brian served as Director for a coding bootcamp, where he is now a lead instructor and course developer for both JavaScript and Python. He teaches Web Development, JavaScript, Python for Data Science, Machine Learning, and AI. He taught Python Data Science and Machine Learning as an Adjunct Professor of Computer Science at Westchester County College.

Brian is also an active industry professional in the field of generative AI app development. His website and iOS app, Artmink, provide appraisals of art and antiques from user-uploaded images.

## FAQ

### Are there any additional fees or expenses?

There are no extra fees or taxes for our courses. The price you see on this page is the maximum you’ll pay us.

## Pricing

**Tuition:** $425