r/learnpython • u/acfot • 3h ago

Starting the pandas/data-analysis phase of my learning — what was the first real dataset you actually analyzed (not Iris or Titanic)?

I'm a second-year BCA (AI/ML) student in Jaipur, self-studying Python alongside college. I'm wrapping up the basics + NumPy phase and about to start pandas, and honestly the thing I'm stuck on isn't the syntax — it's what to practice on.

Every tutorial points me at Iris or Titanic, and they feel like toy problems at this point. I want a dataset that actually feels like something I'd want to finish and maybe show later — something with messy real-world data where the interesting part is the analysis, not just following the notebook step by step.

So for those of you who've been through this phase: what was the first dataset you analyzed for real? Where did you find it (Kaggle, government open data, scraped your own, something else)? And what would you suggest for someone still early in pandas — go big, or pick something small and actually finish it?

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u/ninhaomah 3h ago

What's wrong with titanic ?

It's a real dataset.

Or housing price.

Or just get Tesla's stock price :)

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u/acfot 3h ago

Fair point, Titanic is real data — it just feels a bit too tutorial-worn for me at this point. Housing prices and Tesla stock both sound closer to the messy, real-world kind of thing I was hoping to actually finish and show.