Is learning programming worth it? Outside of a career, what can I do with programming?
I learned a little bit of python back in college with the hope that it would give me a competitive edge in the field I hoped to enter. Lo and behold, I got a job in a different industry entirely and any knowledge of coding I once had became irrelevant.
Would it be worth it to pick up my python textbook again and self-teach in my free time if I don't want to make a career of coding? What exactly can python be used to create?
If your job involves, numbers, data, spreadsheets, and placing that info into reports, then you can automate a good chunk of that work-flow using python. For all things data, checkout out the following libraries:
numpy (vectorized data manipulation)
pandas (data manipulation, and easy import/export to spreadsheets)
matplotlib (graphs, plots, and kinds of data visualization)
jinja2 (automatically generating reports from templates)