These days, coding and computer programming skills can lead to fairly lucrative careers. Computer science experts can be paid roughly $100,000 a year as soon as they’ve earned their degrees, and they're always in high demand. Everyone is looking for someone who can code or program content because of the simple fact that they are difficult and uncommon skills. Even if you don’t plan on attending a four-year school for computer science or a related field, your skills will still be exceptionally marketable if you’ve fostered them in ways that you can give proof of in the future. As long as you can prove that you’ve put the time and effort into your trade, you’ll find that there are many companies and organizations that value proficiency more than an academic degree.
A great way to set yourself up for coding or programming jobs in the future is to begin taking as many online courses as you can. There are lists of free websites that offer a wide variety of content and learning methods. These can include video tutorials, e-book excerpts, step-by-step instruction guides, programs to allow you to practice while you’re learning, and so much more. There are websites that offer courses with stringent curriculums, and if you enroll in these, you are expected to complete all work as if you were attending and being graded in an academic setting. At the end of many of these programs, you may be able to earn a certificate of some sort as proof of your participation and completion. There are others that are more free-formed and depend on you to shape your own experience, but there are still curriculums set up as a sort of road guide for you to follow, skip around, and do or pass on as much as you’d like. With these, course material will be available, but there will be no actual instructor, tests, or deadlines.
Then there are options that have virtually no structure that you can use to learn anything you’d like. If there’s a specific skill that you’d like to expand on it, these websites will allow you to search all content to find specific video tutorials, reading content, step-by-step instructions, and more individualized content. These are often more helpful for coders and programmers with more experience, as you’ll need at least a basic understanding of concepts before you can begin to implement, or even search, for the skills being taught on these websites. It is also very difficult to prove that you have learned from these sources, so it might be best to use them as additives to another learning platform. That way, if you’re ever in a position to talk about your skills, you can say something like, “I’ve spent two years taking coding courses on this curriculum-based learning platform, and I’ve been able to build on those skills by learning how to accomplish more specific tasks on this free-form learning platform.”
The fact that you’ve invested time into your own education and have made the effort to go beyond learning the basics will make you even more marketable because you will have the ability to form a list of skills that others may not have been able or willing to teach themselves. Below are a list of online resources that can be useful at varying levels of your coding and programming education, and they are all structured differently. With so many options available, you can get a coding or programming education in virtually any way you’d like without paying a cent. You’ll be able to build your own list of skills and determine how much you learn in any time frame, but you can also follow curriculums laid out for you. To figure out which resource will work best for you, think about your learning style: are you someone who finds video tutorials useful? Do you comprehend better when you read about a concept? Or are you more hands-on? Whatever your preference, there are options for you, and you should explore them all to find a good fit.
1. Code Academy
2. Code Avengers
3. Code School
4. Coursera
5. Free Code Camp
6. GitHub
7. HTML5Rocks
8. Khan Academy
9. LearnCode.academy - YouTube channel
10. LevelUpTuts - YouTube channel
11. MIT courses
12. Skill Crush
13. Slide Nerd - YouTube channel
14. The Code Player
15. The New Boston - YouTube channel
16. The Odin Project
17. Treehouse - YouTube channel
18. Udacity
19. Udemy.com
20. WebDevMentors - YouTube channel
-Hope Swedeen
How are you working to better your coding skills? How can you make them more marketable?
A great way to set yourself up for coding or programming jobs in the future is to begin taking as many online courses as you can. There are lists of free websites that offer a wide variety of content and learning methods. These can include video tutorials, e-book excerpts, step-by-step instruction guides, programs to allow you to practice while you’re learning, and so much more. There are websites that offer courses with stringent curriculums, and if you enroll in these, you are expected to complete all work as if you were attending and being graded in an academic setting. At the end of many of these programs, you may be able to earn a certificate of some sort as proof of your participation and completion. There are others that are more free-formed and depend on you to shape your own experience, but there are still curriculums set up as a sort of road guide for you to follow, skip around, and do or pass on as much as you’d like. With these, course material will be available, but there will be no actual instructor, tests, or deadlines.
Then there are options that have virtually no structure that you can use to learn anything you’d like. If there’s a specific skill that you’d like to expand on it, these websites will allow you to search all content to find specific video tutorials, reading content, step-by-step instructions, and more individualized content. These are often more helpful for coders and programmers with more experience, as you’ll need at least a basic understanding of concepts before you can begin to implement, or even search, for the skills being taught on these websites. It is also very difficult to prove that you have learned from these sources, so it might be best to use them as additives to another learning platform. That way, if you’re ever in a position to talk about your skills, you can say something like, “I’ve spent two years taking coding courses on this curriculum-based learning platform, and I’ve been able to build on those skills by learning how to accomplish more specific tasks on this free-form learning platform.”
The fact that you’ve invested time into your own education and have made the effort to go beyond learning the basics will make you even more marketable because you will have the ability to form a list of skills that others may not have been able or willing to teach themselves. Below are a list of online resources that can be useful at varying levels of your coding and programming education, and they are all structured differently. With so many options available, you can get a coding or programming education in virtually any way you’d like without paying a cent. You’ll be able to build your own list of skills and determine how much you learn in any time frame, but you can also follow curriculums laid out for you. To figure out which resource will work best for you, think about your learning style: are you someone who finds video tutorials useful? Do you comprehend better when you read about a concept? Or are you more hands-on? Whatever your preference, there are options for you, and you should explore them all to find a good fit.
1. Code Academy
2. Code Avengers
3. Code School
4. Coursera
5. Free Code Camp
6. GitHub
7. HTML5Rocks
8. Khan Academy
9. LearnCode.academy - YouTube channel
10. LevelUpTuts - YouTube channel
11. MIT courses
12. Skill Crush
13. Slide Nerd - YouTube channel
14. The Code Player
15. The New Boston - YouTube channel
16. The Odin Project
17. Treehouse - YouTube channel
18. Udacity
19. Udemy.com
20. WebDevMentors - YouTube channel
-Hope Swedeen
How are you working to better your coding skills? How can you make them more marketable?
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