Progress!

I was getting to the point where I wasn’t sure where to go next. I surveyed the vast landscape called “learning to program,” and the amount of knowledge that I didn’t have was absolutely daunting.

Enter Free Code Camp and The Odin Project. These are full FREE programs for learning.

Free Code Camp is modeled after the various dev bootcamps that are springing up everywhere. You spend about 800 hours learning and 800 hours working on projects that benefit nonprofit organizations. At the end, you’ll have learned, created a portfolio to show future employers, and done good in the world.

That is pretty nifty.

The Odin Project is an open-source curriculum that claims to be a “proven path to successfully learn web development so you don’t have to wonder if you’re doing the right stuff or wasting your time” [emphasis mine].

The fact that I haven’t found either until now makes me question my ability to use Google.

BUT! It doesn’t matter now, because I have found them, and that is exciting to me, especially given how I was feeling as I wrote my last blog post.

Yes, I realize I wrote about a specific incident, but I would be lying if I said a good part of that uncertainty was because I put my own curriculum together (the blind leading the blind, anyone?). I wasn’t sure if I was learning the right thing at the right time.

I’ve been working through Free Code Camp for the past two days due to its emphasis on JavaScript. I’ve heard good things about The Odin Project, and the emphasis of that program is on Ruby. I don’t know if I should even start it, since I think it’s better to do one thing well, rather than doing two things haphazardly. I may give it a shot in the next couple of days.

I’m really excited.