I am enrolled as well.
Already did a short intro course on R before as well. R is a good alternative for statstical analysis of data, also for the kind of exercises we do in the computational investment course. However Python is a more versatile general purpose language better suited for larger projects. The python pandas package brings Python to the level of R concerning data manipulation but my first impression is that pandas has a steeper learning curve. Concerning all kinds of statistical analysis packages I think there is nothing that beats R.
Shall we create a forum on our CompFinanceGroup for this new course?
Enjoy,
Ronny