CS50’s Web Programming with Python and JavaScript- My personal journey during this self-paced course
I will start this article by mentioning the reason why I chose to do this popular course from HarvardX. I graduated from a full-time coding bootcamp called Fullstack Academy in December 2020, started job search, more algorithm practice problems and also playing around with cryptocurrency. While my main focus was on the job search I also realized that for me, to keep coding every day and getting better, was to have a structured learning process. I heard a lot about CS50 course during bootcamp from my other classmates and I was curious to see what is about. So in February 01 2021, I enrolled in the course where I had to go through the following 9 lectures:
1. HTML, CSS
2. Git
3. Python
4. Django
5. SQL, Models, and Migrations
6. JavaScript
7. User Interfaces
8. Testing, CI/CD
9. Scalability and Security
and 6 projects in order to complete the course.
HarvardX is the Harvard-specific branch of online platform EdX, which offers courses free of charge to students across the globe.
Harvard Online Courses has over 100 courses for free in a variety of subjects and you can enroll whenever you want, there are also all self paced which means you can choose to study whenever you want and how much you want on your time. Harvard University courses can be audited free or students can choose to receive a verified certificate for a small fee. I personally chose to add a Verified Certificate for $199 USD just because I like to see what I accomplished until now even though I know that at the end what matters is what know to do in practical terms not the diploma itself (personal opinion).
The diploma that I got at the end of this course is the result of completion of all 6 projects which I will try to describe in the following lines, more specific what and why each one of them was important. Working on this projects helped me understand the relation between Python and Django, practice more Java Script since this is the language I learned about during my 13 weeks immersive course at Fullstack Academy, and why Bootstrap is an ideal choice for responsive sites as it has an excellent fluid grid system and responsive utility classes that make the task at hand easy and quick.
MY PROJECTS:
Project 0: Search
This project requires to design a front-end for Google Search, Google Image Search, and Google Advanced Search.
Project 1: Wiki
Design a Wikipedia-like online encyclopedia.
Project 2: Commerce
Design an eBay-like e-commerce auction site that will allow users to post auction listings, place bids on listings, comment on those listings, and add listings to a “watchlist.”
Project 3: Mail
Design a front-end for an email client that makes API calls to send and receive emails.
Project 4: Network
Design a Twitter-like social network website for making posts and following users.
Project 6- Final project- Capstone- Romy’s Coffee
ROMY’S COFFEE is a small web-application that is using Python and JavaScript with the aim of selling and presenting varieties of coffee. My web application is utilizing Django (has more than one model) on the back-end and JavaScript on the front-end. Romy’s Coffee is build in that way that is mobile-responsive.
As a conclusion I want to mention that I had lot’s of moments , sometimes days where I wanted to quit because I was by myself but what I realized is that at the end you still manage to resolve and find the bug and…. ohhh man the felling is awesome :))! Is nothing bad asking for help sometimes even like lines of code if at the end you understand why he did that and next time you will know how to apply it. Is very time consuming trying to debug by yourself something that seems unreachable(which at the end turns out not to be impossible lol) and is very good to ask for help. I really appreciate the CS50 community on Reddit, and still thank to that person who helped debug my code after 2 days of struggling.
Definitely I recommend doing CS50’s Web Programming with Python and JavaScript course because you will only get to win from doing it and you have the advantage of not be pressured by a deadline which can help you focus more and concentrate better on what is required.
