Everything You Need To Know Before Enrolling – Forbes Advisor
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Whether you’d like to break into a career in tech or you just want to strengthen your coding skills, you might benefit from an online coding camp or training center, like freeCodeCamp.
What Is freeCodeCamp?
When you sign up for freeCodeCamp, you join a nonprofit organization that provides free access to coding classes to just about anyone. From students to career-changers, freeCodeCamp offers something for everyone. The organization offers 12 modules of study and requires no previous experience. Over 40,000 freeCodeCamp graduates have gone on to work at tech companies like Google, Apple, Amazon and Spotify.
FreeCodeCamp students gain access to the following:
- Relevant certifications they can add to their résumé and LinkedIn profiles
- Thousands of hours of practice through sample questions and learning modules
- A large selection of free video courses through the freeCodeCamp YouTube channel
- An online forum for support and job networking
How Much Does freeCodeCamp Cost?
As its name suggests, freeCodeCamp’s services are free. freeCodeCamp is a donor-supported, tax-exempt, nonprofit organization. Tax-deductible donations enable freeCodeCamp to build its education initiatives and employ educators.
Online Bootcamps Offered by freeCodeCamp
FreeCodeCamp offers 12 areas of study, which the company recommends taking in order, especially for those with little or no coding experience. Each module awards a certification and takes about 300 hours to complete, totaling 3,600 hours of online study. Below we’ve listed freeCodeCamp’s 12 modules, including brief descriptions of each.
Responsive Web Design
Time to Completion: 300 hours
Course Format: Self-paced
Can Courses Be Completed Fully Online? Yes
Careers this Course Prepares Learners for: Software developer
Overview of What to Expect in this Course: In this introductory course, students learn how to use HTML and CSS and explore website design across various platforms. Projects in this course include building simple web interfaces, like a survey, a landing page and a personal portfolio.
JavaScript Algorithms and Data Structures
Time to Completion: 300 hours
Course Format: Self-paced
Can Courses Be Completed Fully Online? Yes
Careers this Course Prepares Learners for: Java developer
Overview of What to Expect in this Course: This course focuses on JavaScript, one of the most popular programming languages used today. Students use JavaScript for a variety of assignments and learn about elements like variables, functions and arrays. This course covers aspects of both functional programming (i.e., programming with functions) and object-oriented programming (i.e., assigning behaviors to objects).
Front-End Development Libraries
Time to Completion: 300 hours
Course Format: Self-paced
Can Courses Be Completed Fully Online? Yes
Careers this Course Prepares Learners for: Web developer, software engineer
Overview of What to Expect in this Course: Front-end development involves writing software that users interact with. In freeCodeCamp’s front-end development libraries course, students learn about several popular front-end development languages, including Bootstrap, Sass, React, jQuery and Redux. Students use these languages to create web page apps and other projects.
Data Visualization
Time to Completion: 300 hours
Course Format: Self-paced
Can Courses Be Completed Fully Online? Yes
Careers this Course Prepares Learners for: Software engineer
Overview of What to Expect in this Course: In this data visualization course, students explore the D3.js library. D3 stands for data-driven documents, and this framework helps users add dynamic visualization to web browsers. Learners must build graphs, charts and maps. They also learn various data manipulation techniques, including JSON, Java’s easy-to-understand data transport service.
Relational Database Certification
Time to Completion: 300 hours
Course Format: Self-paced
Can Courses Be Completed Fully Online? Yes
Careers this Course Prepares Learners for: Software engineer
Overview of What to Expect in this Course: This course delves into file systems and databases. Students master basic commands and advanced Bash scripting, using the terminal to manipulate and navigate file systems, automate tasks and run interactive programs. The class covers how to build and manage relational databases, emphasizing database management system PostgreSQL and programming language SQL.
Back End Development and APIs
Time to Completion: 300 hours
Course Format: Self-paced
Can Courses Be Completed Fully Online? Yes
Careers this Course Prepares Learners for: Java developer
Overview of What to Expect in this Course: Learners in this course use JavaScript for back-end web development. Students are introduced to Node.js, the Express framework, MongoDB and the Mongoose library. Learners use these to create various microservices.
Quality Assurance
Time to Completion: 300 hours
Course Format: Self-paced
Can Courses Be Completed Fully Online? Yes
Careers this Course Prepares Learners for: Quality assurance engineer
Overview of What to Expect in this Course: Quality assurance (QA) involves testing a company’s web applications to ensure proper functioning. In this QA class, students use Express and Node.js to create an online issue tracker and a chat app.
Scientific Computing with Python
Time to Completion: 300 hours
Course Format: Self-paced
Can Courses Be Completed Fully Online? Yes
Careers this Course Prepares Learners for: Software developer
Overview of What to Expect in this Course: Python is a general-purpose software language that emphasizes clean, easy-to-read code through extensive use of indentation. This course serves as an introduction to the coding language Python. Students learn different facets of Python, including conditionals, loops, functions, variables and databases. Students complete several basic projects using the Python programming language.
Data Analysis with Python
Time to Completion: 300 hours
Course Format: Self-paced
Can Courses Be Completed Fully Online? Yes
Careers this Course Prepares Learners for: Software developer, web developer
Overview of What to Expect in this Course: This course dives deeper into the Python programming language. Students use Python to analyze data and complete projects such as a demographic data analyzer, medical data visualizer and sea level predictor.
Information Security
Time to Completion: 300 hours
Course Format: Self-paced
Can Courses Be Completed Fully Online? Yes
Careers this Course Prepares Learners for: Information security specialist, system administrator
Overview of What to Expect in this Course: At the heart of information security is the ability to recognize potentially harmful attacks on a company’s data. This certification course introduces students to the basics of information security. Projects include creating a port scanner and a password cracker.
Machine Learning with Python
Time to Completion: 300 hours
Course Format: Self-paced
Can Courses Be Completed Fully Online? Yes
Careers this Course Prepares Learners for: Machine learning engineer
Overview of What to Expect in this Course: In the Machine Learning with Python course, students use TensorFlow, an open-source software library for dataflow programming. Learners design a cat and dog image classifier, a book recommendation engine and a neural network SMS text classifier.
College Algebra with Python
Time to Completion: 300 hours
Course Format: Self-paced
Can Courses Be Completed Fully Online? Yes
Careers this Course Prepares Learners for: Software engineer, Python developer
Overview of What to Expect in this Course: This certification solidifies students’ understanding of algebra and data science concepts. Throughout the course, designed as a one-semester college class, learners solve math problems using Python code and create a custom calculator.
Frequently Asked Questions About freeCodeCamp
Is freeCodeCamp enough to get a job?
Taking courses through freeCodeCamp can strengthen your programming skills and introduce you to a wider array of programming languages and concepts, but it usually takes a well-rounded résumé to impress potential employers. You’ll want to show a combination of education, certifications, self-study and work experience to find the right job for you.
Is freeCodeCamp certification recognized by employers?
For the most part, no. Holding certification from an online learning platform like freeCodeCamp is an achievement, but many employers see this as a form of self-learning. Even so, earning certifications through freeCodeCamp enhances your existing skill set, helps you learn new skills and even helps you figure out your future career.
How do I start freeCodeCamp?
It’s simple (and free!) to sign up for freeCodeCamp. Simply go to the website and click on “get started.” You’ll then create a profile and choose the course you’d like to begin.
