The Building Blocks: Build a Basic Website - Class 1
This is the 2nd part in a series by Rachel Balik on her experience learning to code in an online instructor led class on Matygo.
When I was a sophomore in college, my medieval literature professor suggested that I change my major from English to Computer Engineering.
“Absolutely not!” I told him. First of all, I loved English. But more importantly, I was certain that computer engineering classes would be laborious, boring and miles over my head.
When I signed on to my first Matygo class “Build a Basic Website” I was sincerely hoping that would not turn out to be the case. Fortunately, as soon as the class began, I realized the it would embody everything was good about college, while leaving out everything that was bad.
The Good Stuff:
- Intellectual environment. Everyone in the class came with curiosity and drive.
- Like-minded people. We went around the “room” and each student said why he or she had taken the class. It was amazing to hear how each student planned to use coding skills to further professional goals - whether it was improving performance at the office or building a website.
- Homework. I know, homework doesn’t always sound like fun, but especially when it comes to new skill building, practice makes perfect. I was glad to hear that we were going to have problem sets, and go over them in class to make sure we understood.
- Knowledgeable teachers. Our two teachers, Andrei and Paul, both had strong but different backgrounds in programming and were prepared to share their knowledge and experience.
The Bad Stuff That Wasn’t There:
- A strict curriculum with no flexibility. Paul and Andrei told us that the course could be modified to meet the needs of class. If we were confused, they’d slow down and if we were killing it, they’d add material.
- Grades. Yes, we have to do homework, but we’ll have the opportunity to go over it with classmates rather than angst over getting things wrong.
- Too cool for school professors. Remember how hard it was in college to get a hold of a professor if you had questions? Paul and Andrei gave us multiple ways to contact them - including their personal email addresses.
Our first class was devoted to meeting each other through video icons and watching slides describing the curriculum. We were told to download tutorials and get started on our out-of-class work. Our assignment for the next week is to “Play with Code.” Somehow, this actually sounds like it might be fun.
