The Odin Project

Background: I was a public school teacher for most of my career and recently worked in an education technology startup. Having worked closely with the designers and engineers at that job, I really enjoyed their responsibilities and am trying to transition... Read More into software engineering as my primary gig. I live in San Francisco proper so needless to say there numerous coding bootcamps here. After researching all the top ones and even attending their workshops, I landed on The Odin Project for a few reasons which I'll detail below but primarily for the sake of saving my hard earned money for other things -like the cost of living in the Bay Area!

Why TOP?
-For one, I love the focus on getting you to use the tools of the trade. Right from the start you set up your own development environment and learn to use github. At my former startup, the engineering team was constantly on this and the command line so I see the direct application already.
-Two, I've heard time and time again that to be a good engineer you gotta have a the thirst to continue to learn on your own. The curriculum definitely helps you builds this mindset while also being honest about the challenging road ahead. By the way, the community is great. The veterans are always lurking online and I've personally have had extended conversations with guys encouraging me and helping me along.
-Three, this program is free.99! As a teacher I would always scour the web for free resources for myself and for my kids. The tough part is finding the right resource for the kids to use at the right time. The curriculum here curates the content for me, so I can focus on keeping up with the rabbit instead of falling down the holes.

Some Challenges
-Some of the resources can be a bit dense as you're learning the how and the why behind things. I had some experience with HTML, CSS, and Javascript and was able to keep up pretty well but I can see it being a little daunting for complete beginners.
-No other big issues from my point of view.

Overall
-My experience with the online community and curriculum of The Odin Project has been great. I definitely enjoy learning at my own pace and recognize the challenges that come with that. If you're looking for a place that keeps it real with you, this is it because your growth is on you -although don't feel like you're alone, there's a community here for you.

I have worked through several teaching resources for software development over the past year or so. Each one promising the moon at your fingertips and a guaranteed job. The Odin Project lays it out very cut and dry for everyone to see. The have a no-nonsense... Read More curriculum and make 100's of references to external resources. They force you to dig for the answer to your problems, but they also provide a working path towards realizing your goals of becoming a professional web developer.

Pros:
Honesty
Promotion of hard work
No-nonsense learning path
Lots of external resources
An active online community to help
Production of solid skillsets
Free

Cons:
No real hand-holding
Time consuming
Job placement is up to the individual

I have just started to learn programming using the Odin project. Prior, I would think of some task that I wanted to accomplish and then scour the internet for tutorials about how to best accomplish that task. As you can imagine, this method is highly... Read More frustrating. However, many former tutorials that I attempted encouraged this method of learning through outlines that were not very organized. Clicking on included links would often introduce me to other topics which had nothing to do with the tasks at hand. I hope that through the Odin project I will be able to rely more increasingly on innate knowledge to accomplish tasks that I care about by being able to focus more consistently on specific tasks.

So far my experience seems to suggest the Odin project will fulfill this promise. Prior tutorials left me feeling confused as they provided many unnecessary and distracting links to information that had nothing to do with the subject matter at hand. TOP (the Odin project) doesn’t do this. The links that they do include are always very relevant and go a long way towards helping me to understand the subjct matter of whatever topic I am studying at the moment.

I have utilised many different learning resources - MOOCS, Lynda.com, Treehouse, Launch School, Free Code Camp, Codecademy - to name just a few. They have each had their unique value, and have each had several deficiencies. One of the biggest problems... Read More I see in online courses is how quickly they rush through fundamental skills and principles without real-world practice, so that I find myself leaving courses feeling like I have learned little.

It seems like the creators of The Odin Project understood this problem, and decided to create a curriculum of curated content, where most of the work is actually done elsewhere, using quality resources to build the skills in each learning stage. It introduces the all-important aspects of mindsets in learning, and early on gets the learner geared-up in building their own development environment to understand from the outset some of the tools of the professional.

Having spent many thousands on classroom content that was poorly delivered, this curriculum is a breath of fresh air and a frustrating reminder of the poverty of institutions that have no interest in aligning their content with the real world. I actually feel like I am learning now. For example, I reached the first project, started following the instructions, then felt lost. I realised that I had thought I had the fundamentals down, but had skimmed quickly through earlier sections, and am now working back through them. It feels a little annoying to move through really simple concepts again, but knowing that this is necessary to bridge the gaps of knowledge makes it worthwhile.

Free Code Camp has far more of a following, but the problem I found there is that it is a simulated environment - you step through the code bit by bit in the browser, and then are thrown into the deep end, left to fill the large gap of knowledge. The Odin Project has you read a lot more, but ensures that all you need to complete each project (and projects are a huge part of the curriculum) are included as part of the assignments and content.

It’s not the most visually appealing site, some content is dated, and the choice of Ruby might turn away many - but I can’t honestly fault the implementation of a rock-solid curriculum for web development. And it’s open source, constantly under development by a core team and the people going through the curriculum.

After messing around with Java and messing around building websites I decided I needed a bit more structure to my learning. I discovered The Odin Project in a Reddit post and it seemed to be what I was looking for, a well structured path to learning web... Read More dev skills to enable me to create my own apps.

PROS:
- A well structured course of all the core skills you'll need
- A very welcoming community
- Help can always be found in the chat rooms
- The course is updated to keep skills relevant
- Learners can give back by submitting their own ideas to improve the course
- You learn to get set up in your own environment

CONS:
- It's a self learning environment. You have to be motivated to work on your own for long periods. That works for some but not for everyone
- It's not easy to get full feedback on projects because it is entirely run by volunteers
- Trying to pair up with other students can be difficult

Because it is free, it's a great place to start your journey to see if you do want a career in the industry without signing up for an expensive bootcamp. Resources are free even to those who don't want to make an account. I highly recommend it.

I spend so much time trying to battle with all the choices of courses both paid and free and also with all the choices of programming languages, like which one was the "best one". But it got so unproductive one day I just got tired of beating around the... Read More bush and decided on one factor. Which one was a stable, user friendly language that I wanted to learn and which one had the framework that was ideal for startups, rapid prototyping and had many success stories behind it, which was rails with all these sites such as twitter, GitHub, netflix and so many more, and although they have move toward other direction, they would not have been what they are if it had not been for this framework imho.

I have tried before to watch tutorial videos, but that never worked for me. I am the type of learner that needs to experiment on my own to actually understand. maybe for some concepts I need a video explanation but to code, no. I need you to give me the concepts and tell me "now with the concepts you just learn, I need you to go build me this (insert app)" and NOT showing me a tutorial where I can follow along to build it. Because then I will be tempted to just look at it and see the solution. The odin project those this very approach of giving you the resources and then asking to build something based on it without giving you the solution, this forced me hardcore to find the solution no matter what. I decided to take it seriously and actually dedicated 8+ hours a day to follow along it and immerse myself in it, I was jobless at the time and was just doing a masters I had lost interest in. It took me 2 and half months to go from the very first part of the odin project curriculum to finishing the rails one which is not even the end. and decided to do my very own projects and dive more deep into the language and the rails framework on my own after that and after a total of 5 months, I started applying for jobs until I finally got one 6 months after I initially started the odin project. I cannot say how amazing this course was for me, like I mention before it was perfect for my learning style and since it does not hold your hand thru the process and forces you to do it, I can honestly say that this is the only course that is for serious people who want to learn, not just a hobby but actually want to change careers, because it takes a lot of will power and dedication to go thru it yourself.

TLDR; (pros and cons)

Pros:
1. FREE
2. Ruby (such a CLEAN language, you will realize how important for your sanity clean syntax is later)
3. You can go on your own pace, if you are desperate have time and are dedicated you can really learn and land a job faster than any other paid program.
4. Since it forces you to come up with the solution on your own, you WILL solidify the language and framework which will make you a good coder (which are scarce and in demand).
5. Awesome community, everyone is very helpful and you will see that you are not alone in any problem, from installing a simple tool, to more complex framework problems. (seriously people will even code review your projects if you ask)
6. Doesn't JUST teach you the programming language and framework but solidifies computer science concepts, again... making you a great programmer.

Cons:
1. Time consuming: since it solidifies complex computer science concepts and is thorough, it takes much more time than your average than the (here is the syntax build this project and go find a job) programs
2. If you are the type of learner that need to get walkthrough everything to learn then this might not be for you.
3. There is no real personal help with getting you a job, you will get advice and how to go about it on your own, but that is it.

The Odin Project is one of the best free resources that can be found on the internet. Their model is a little different from most other sites out there. In contrast to sites like FreeCodeCamp or Codecademy, Odin tries to find and organize the best free... Read More resources around the net into an easy-to follow curriculum for learning web development. This means that the curriculum can be more complete (because contributors aren't constantly having to write original content) up-to-date (because contributors can just find an updated resource when something changes) and consistently high-quality (because the curriculum is open sourced.. if any student finds a better resource for teaching some topic they can add it to the lesson themselves). Because of the things mentioned, contributors spend the majority of their time focusing on the most relevant subject matter and the optimal sequencing of this content rather than just cranking out lessons and articles to stay up-to-date

The community in their chatrooms are insanely helpful and consistently friendly as well making this one of the greatest online-resources around.

Personally, I am a success story, using primarily Odin I was able to completely change careers from something non-tech (I was a high school teacher) to web development in the course of about 1 year.

I started with The Odin Project January 1, 2017. I knew it would take a while to learn all the skills necessary to change careers, but I didn't expect it to be so engaging. The Odin Project is a FREE online bootcamp that starts from 0 and turns you into... Read More a developer. Along the way you learn all the necessary troubleshooting skills needed to make a splash. No online IDE, no online error messages, just 100% do-it-yourself goodness.

After about a year of working on The Odin Project part time (15-20 hours a week) I was able to land a job in the IT field. I love what I do and the Odin Project was the reason why I was able to change my life. The Odin Project gave me projects to put on my resume. It gave me real-world skills I use every day. It taught me how to learn.

Is it easy? no. Is it frustrating? Sometimes. Is it rewarding? HELL YEAH! Is it free? Yup!

I have done The Odin Project curriculum and am still active in their Gitter community. I have nothing but good things to say about The Odin Project, the curriculum is thorough, the mods are very helpful, and the projects that you complete are real concepts... Read More that you may encounter in a dev role. The community is always encouraging growth and actively helping people.