Free Code Camp - Scientific Computing with Python Certification Tips

I recently completed Free Code Camp’s Scientific Computing with Python certification. This article talks about my experience with this certification along with the tips for completing it successfully.

How long it takes?

It took me about 3 days to complete this certification as I am already familiar with many Python concepts and have read Python for Everybody book.

Projects Review

As with many freeCodeCamp’s certifications, there are 5 projects in this certification as well. Many of these projects require developers to write code based on Object Oriented Programming concepts especially writing Classes in Python. So getting more comfortable with OOP concepts before attempting the certification projects would speed up the process.

Certification Completion Tips

Here are some of the tips I use on a regular basis to complete these certification projects:

• Local Environment - I fork the projects and work with them in my local environment using my preferable Code Editor. As I am more comfortable with shortcuts and options in Code Editor, this results in faster development. Finally, I upload completed code to REPL when there are no failures in project’s test cases.
• README.md Instructions - Internalizing the instructions contained in README.md file before starting the project would save a lot of project development time.
• Run main.py Examples - Besides unit test cases, all of the projects have sample usage for the problems on hand in main.py file. Attempting to run these individually would help understand issues with the newly written code before starting to satisfy project test cases.
• Enable Fewer Test Cases - Writing just enough code to satisfy some of the test cases at a time would motivate and help in detecting bugs early in the written code.
• Troubleshooting Tests - If there are test failures and not sure why the actual test results are not matching with the expected results, reading the expected results’ output in test-module.py file would help speed up the debugging process.

Hope these tips help you in successfully completing the certification projects!

Here is link to my certification:

https://www.freecodecamp.org/certification/dev0928/scientific-computing-with-python-v7