I work in tourism but because of the pandemic, I found myself with a lot of time on my hands, so this summer I decided to join some random events and tried some online courses about programming. I come from a completely non-technical background, so I was surprised that it wasn't as hard as I thought it would be for me. But after a few weeks, I was discouraged by the slow progress I was making, and, at the same time, I wasn't even sure I was learning the right language. I found out about coding bootcamps, but I wasn't sure if they were worth the investment. That's why, when I saw that Code Chrysalis were offering a beginners' course, I decided to join and see what it's like to study in a more structured environment and with other people, as opposed to online self-study. I read some online reviews about the Foundations course, and it seemed like pretty much everyone thought it was "fun and easy". After going through it, I can definitely say the "fun" part is true, but I'm not so sure about the "easy" part. Here are some of my thoughts after graduating from CC Foundations 27: 1. It's a great introduction to Javascript for beginners, but at the same time, I think it's useful for those who are not new to JS or programming but want to review their basics. After each lesson, there are coding exercises for 4 levels, from basic to "nightmare", so each student can see what level they're at. For beginners like me, it was sometimes frustrating that even basic exercises took me a long time to solve, but it was challenging to try a higher than basic level, and if I was able to crack the code (pun intended), the satisfaction was even greater and it pushed me to try and learn more. 2. The lessons themselves are pretty basic, so the real learning comes from working on the coding challenges, as I mentioned above. This should be obvious, but as a beginner, I think I had expected something more like a coding tutorial, where we would learn how "something is done" and then try to do it on our own. But for many of the exercises, I had to google things on my own, and try to understand the more complex solutions provided on Stackoverflow, for example, and then adapt them to simpler code, which I was able to write at my own level. So in that respect, even though it's a beginners' course (and a short one for that matter!), it kind of forces you to work in a manner similar to what it's like for an actual software developer. 3. So one might ask, why should I pay (and not a little!) for a course if in the end I have to google the solutions myself? Well, even if you find the solutions online, you may not be able to fully understand the code and what it does, and that's when you can always check with the instructors of the course. All of the instructors and the TAs at CC were very helpful and always encouraged us to ask questions. There were quite a few of them for the Foundations course, and it could be frustrating at times having a different instructor with every lesson, because sometimes it felt like there was little continuity from one lesson to another, but on the other hand, I think this was also supposed to teach us how to work with and learn from different people and different coding styles. Also, the more instructors the better, because we could get an answer on Slack faster from whoever was available. 4. All in all, there was a lot packed in a 5-week course, which is why I don't think it was easy. I would advise anyone who is thinking about taking the Foundations to study Javascript a little bit prior to starting the course, so that you can really take advantage of all the resources available throughout the course. I think even if you know the basics, this course can give you the opportunity to level-up, and also to meet great people in the industry and expand your network. | 