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Discussion on: How I made my first Full Stack App and Got a Certification from Harvard University and how you can too.

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Aditya Pandey • Edited

Hey, I am quite aware that these certificates do not matter and it's the projects that we do. And I didn't even do the course for the certificate (i am a business student actually, do this for just fun😅), it was the learning that I gained and for this hobby of mine.

But, it's human nature to feel good about these certificates when you have been working on course for 2-3 months.
And, what I have built wasn't actually part of the course, students were free to work on project of their choice and since I love books, I chose this project.

I am not sure if you have checked out the course, but it is one of the best to learn computer science,
and the problem sets of the course make you really work hard if you do them sincerely of course.
If I have to glorify anything, it would be this amazing course that is available for free helping many like me who wish to learn to code from quality sources.

Anyways, thank you for your comment, it will be quite helpful for a beginner reading the post who might do these courses just for the sake of the certificate. :)

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Aditya Pandey • Edited

There wasn't anything in your comment to be taken in the wrong way.
I understood that you had the best of intentions. You just presumed a few things, and that's totally fine.

About your views on courses, this is the only video course I have ever done, and that was purely because of content and the teaching style of amazing David Malan.
And, your bit about making a curriculum for yourself, it might be great for an intermediate or seasoned developer, but a newbie just entering this field or someone from non-tech background might get overwhelmed with the amount of stuff out there to learn.

So, it's best for them to follow a path of sites like freecodecamp.org (which I use to learn) or this CS50 course. They can ask for help from other senior people as well ( that's where sites like dev.to come into place, kudos to them).

And, about the CS50 AP, haven't received good reviews about it from some of my friends who have taken it. XD. No offense.
CS50x(Harvard) is more practical as compared to CS50AP because it composes less theoretical and gives focus on more practical stuff with different programming languages. It gives a really solid foundation.

Again, totally agree with you about the best way to learn is to build stuff. This is reason why I recommend freecodecamp.org and CS50 many newbies.

So, message to beginners is always, build, build, and build. But, yes, a structure is really important when you are just starting out. :)

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256hz profile image
Abe Dolinger • Edited

@Arth Tyagi Again, very silly, some people learn best when self-directed, school works for others. There's no right way to learn, only what is best for you. Never slap down a student because their work isn't up to some imaginary quality standard.

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Aditya Pandey

Very fair point.
What I meant was that beginners need a structure or roadmap when starting out or they might fall in the tutorial hell (randomly watching youtube videos and not building stuff).
It's always better to reach out to people senior to you in the field and following a structure because you might end up losing the motivation if you go on to make your own curriculum and randomly watch tutorials.

100% agree with you. :)

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Abe Dolinger

Sorry, I was trying to reply to the post above yours, edited to make that more clear!